


That Still Small Voice

by Lavendergaia



Series: Hogwarts AU Verse [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts AU, Lots of Avenger cameos, Lots of Fitz/Skye friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2642702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavendergaia/pseuds/Lavendergaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifth-Year Hogwarts student Leo Fitz should be focusing on classes and getting ready to take his O.W.L.s, but mostly all he can think about is how much he's in love with his best friend. And that's starting to become a problem. Hogwarts AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The library was not normally a busy place before classes, but there was a steady buzz of energy that morning as Fitz flipped through the pages of the Advanced Transfiguration book Professor Coulson had let him check out of the restricted section. All around him, tables were filled with students working on last minute papers, students not unlike Skye who looked ready to hex her own Transfiguration paper into dust. Glancing over to the librarian desk to make sure Ms. Hand wasn’t watching him, he slipped his last piece of blueberry scone out of his pocket and into his mouth. It wasn’t that he hated helping Skye with her homework, he just hated having to leave breakfast early to do it.

Next to him, Skye groaned under her breath and slid her ream of parchment across the table. “Is this even close to right?”

Fitz batted her hand away from where she was messing up her already uneven black and yellow tie, knowing she didn’t need to lose her House even more points for dress code violations. He looked over the essay quickly, ignoring any impulses to cross out or correct. “It’s mostly right.”

“Good enough!” She dropped her quill into her bag, leaning back into the library chair and sighing. Ms. Hand shushed them, but Skye ignored her. “I can’t work on this anymore. I can’t. I don’t know how you just…get it.”

Shrugging, he handed her his own quill so that she could write her name on it. “Transfiguration comes easy to me. I can just see how things need to change and adjust in order to become what I want them to be. Kind of like Charms is to you.”

“It helps that Professor Coulson isn’t on my ass all the time in Charms,” she grumbled. “You’re so lucky he’s your Head of House.” Running her hand through her hair, she yawned. “I guess May’s not the absolute worst, but she’s kind of terrifying. Sometimes I think she just sits in the common room to watch us. Sits and waits.”

Even not ever having seen the Hufflepuff common room, he could imagine that and he grinned. “Best Defense Against the Dark Arts professor we’ve ever had though.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all, but you don’t have the ex-Auror checking your curfew every night.” Skye scanned her essay quickly, making a face as she noticed a misspelling. She stole Fitz’s quill again, crossing out the mistake and writing over it. “I’ve been here four years and sometimes I feel like I’m never going to get it, you know?” she muttered under her breath. Skye glanced down at her hands, which were blotted with ink. “Fucking fantastic.” She rubbed her palms against her skirt, which just smeared it more.

Fitz smiled sympathetically, then pulled out his wand, tapping the end of it against her hands. “ _Scorgify.”_ When she nodded her thanks, he said, “I know how you feel sometimes.”

She sighed, then put her face in her newly clean hands. “Oh, please, you’re a prefect! You’re a fifth year who gets seventh year work from some of your professors! You’re like the second-most smartest person at this school!”

“Hey!”

She gave him a look. “Okay, tied-for-first smartest person here. You know what I mean.”

Fitz nudged her gently. “Yeah, I do know what you mean. But it’s not like I’m popular or anything like that. I mean, people talk to me when they need help with their work, but that’s it.” At her noise of indignation, he rolled his eyes. “Not you, but the other Gryffindors do. I’m like the worst Gryffindor ever, the Hat definitely made a mistake. And I don’t care about Quidditch and that’s all anyone else ever bloody cares about here. I’m only good at Transfiguration and classwork, but I’m not good at anything else. Coulson only gave me the prefect job because I’m good in his class. I’m…I’m not…” He glanced across the library and held back a groan as his eyes fell on the perfect example. “I’m not Grant Ward.”

Skye’s head snapped up immediately. A large grin spread over her face as she followed his gaze. “Well, hello Head Boy.”

“Ugh, not you too.”

“Please, Fitz. Every girl loves Grant Ward. I mean, have you seen him?”

He scowled at her. “Not…every girl.” His trail of thought went to a familiar place and he checked his watch. “I’m gonna head to class. Good luck with that essay, I’ll see you later.”

“This early?”

“I’ve got double Potions, I have to get down to the basement.”

Skye laughed and licked her lips. “Oh, right. Double Potions. With the Ravenclaws.”        

Fitz ignored the way his face flushed red as he stood up and picked up his cauldron. “Yeah, what’s your point?”

Picking his quill up off the table, she used the feathered end to tickle his nose. “Say hi to Jemma for me.”

He snatched the quill from her. “Shut up.”

“I hope you two make sweet, sweet potions together.”

“I changed my mind, I hope you do horribly on that essay and get detention again.” Her laugh followed him out of the library. He hoped Hand took a hundred points away from Hufflepuff.

It really wasn’t that long of a walk down to the basement and he was the first one there, even beating Professor Garrett. He set up his cauldron and supplies at the table at which he preferred to work. Today’s shrinking potion was supposed to be one of the most difficult of the year and he had read through it a few times already, making notes in the margin of the text for himself. He almost didn’t notice Jemma coming in until her hair brushed against his shoulder and tingles went down his spine like lightning.

“Morning, Fitz!” she said excitedly.

He loved Potions with the Ravenclaws. She was never happier than in Potions. “Morning,” he said around the lump in his throat. “You’re in a good mood today.”

She shrugged enigmatically before setting up her station next to his and putting her hair up in a ponytail. As the rest of the students started filing in, Jemma leaned close to him and whispered, “Do you want to know a secret?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“I’ve already done this potion!” she said softly, then grinned widely at him.

He stared at her for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

She giggled under her breath. “After I got the book over the summer. With my parents’ supervision, of course. I knew this one was difficult, so I wanted to get it out of the way. You know Professor Garrett doesn’t really like me that much—”

“That’s not true.”

Jemma gave him a look. “You’re just saying that because he likes you and usually when professors like you they like me too. Except for Garrett. But no matter. I did this potion half a dozen times and I perfected it and even managed to find way to make improvements, if I do say so myself.”

Fitz snorted. “You made improvements?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, setting her jaw with determination. “Yes, I did. There is no way I am not getting the highest marks on this potion, Fitz. He might like you better, but I am better at Potions and he is not marking me down again.”

“You are better!” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You’ve always been better at Potions than me. I just wonder if, even with all your Potions brilliance, you could make changes that would make improvement. It’s kind of an old potion.”

Turning on her stool, she narrowed her eyes at him, but he could see a hint of play in their brown depths. “Fine then. A wager? Whoever receives lower marks buys the other a sugar quill and a butterbeer at Hogsmeade this weekend. And you’ve got a handicap because he already likes you better.”

His heart sped up in his chest. Were they going to Hogsmeade together this weekend? They almost always did, sometimes with Skye, but this mean they absolutely would have to go no matter what. “You’re on.” He stuck out his hand and she shook it firmly.

Smiling to herself, she turned back to the table to reorganize her things, sticking her textbook—which he could only now assume had her improved formula in it—to the other side of their work space, away from him. As she did so, another Ravenclaw walked past their table casually. “Hey, Simmons,” Triplett said, grinning at her.

“Good morning,” she said back, returning his smile with her usually friendly and cheerful air.

Fitz glowered. He didn’t see why Triplett couldn’t have greeted her in their common room. They had breakfast at the same table, surely there had been time then. There was no reason to bother her during class or this even more important time before class when people were trying to get their heads together and get into the academic mindset. Frankly, it was just rude. That’s who Triplett was. He was rude. Rude and disrespectful to everyone else.

Luckily, Professor Garrett walked into the classroom at that time so Fitz was spared having to disparage Jemma’s housemate in front of her. He only half-listened as instructions were given out. He may not have perfected the potion over the summer, but he wasn’t going to blow himself up. Next to him, Jemma sat ramrod straight but he could feel her practically thrumming with excitement. His heart beat double time as he avoided looking at her, but couldn’t avoid focusing on her golden hair on the edge of his peripheral vision.

As soon as Garrett told them they could start, Jemma flipped her book open. He could tell she was barely even focusing on the instructions as she pulled ingredients in front of her. It took all of Fitz’s willpower to shake himself out of his Jemma stupor and open his own book, reading through what was actually written there. He followed the directions exactly and soon the potion was reacting just as it was supposed to. As Garrett walked down the aisles, he patted Fitz on the shoulder and gave him an encouraging nod.

Next to him, Jemma was working furiously. He flipped the page over and swallowed hard, noticing that she was at least three steps ahead of him. Mentally, he tried to attribute that to her experience with the potion and not that the end result would turn out better. Not that he wouldn’t buy her a thousand butterbeers if that was what she wanted (and he could somehow afford it), it was just the principle of the whole thing. He wanted to win. She had already won their last Arithmancy battle; to lose twice in a row would be unseemly.

He picked up his pace as he chopped the onion root, sweeping it into his cauldron before stirring it the requisite dozen times. Jemma was now just sitting and waiting, staring at her watch every few seconds or so. He didn’t remember that as part of the potion. When he managed to catch her eye, the smile she gave him was a challenge and his stomach swooped and his mouth went dry and okay, she was going down.

Looking back at the potion, he went immediately to the next step, which was draining beetles. He hated draining anything that used to be a living creature and would usually ask Jemma to do it for him, but decided that that wasn’t going to be possible today. Steeling his stomach, he squeezed the requisite seven beetles until he got a nice collection of fluid to dump into his cauldron. He wasn’t even that nauseated by it, a personal triumph if nothing else.

The book was telling him that he was only halfway done, but he was already pretty exhausted. It was no wonder that they chose a double class for this. To his right, she was measuring the tiniest bit of unicorn horn powder into her cauldron. That wasn’t even in his recipe, dammit. He took a deep breath, telling himself that he wasn’t starting to worry and that he worked better under pressure.

When most of the ingredients had been added, the cauldrons were supposed to sit on a very specific high heat for fifteen minutes. This, according to the book, was one of the most crucial parts of the potion. Without close monitoring of the heat and the potion, it was easy for it to over-boil or cool off and lose its essence. Luckily, this was one of the parts of potions Fitz was great at and the intense concentration meant that he had to ignore Jemma—normally easier said than done, but in this case the flame acted like a hypnosis.

After finishing out his fifteen minutes, he added the few remaining ingredients to his potion and stared down at it happily. It looked exactly as it was supposed to: yellow, with a light orangey sheen at the top that followed the spoon as he stirred it. Fitz glanced over at Jemma, not surprised to find her already done. Her potion looked slightly brighter, a more butter yellow to his lemon color, but it wasn’t wrong, so to speak. She squeezed his arm excitedly as she bottled it and it was just then that he noticed Garrett going around to collect samples. He had finished just in time. Fitz bottled and labeled his own, handing it to Garrett just as Jemma did hers.

“Good luck,” Fitz whispered to her.

“Thanks,” she said back, a twinkle in her brown eyes.

Garrett placed all the samples on his desk, then floated out an extremely large cart covered in a huge tarp that Fitz hadn’t even realized had been at the back of the classroom. “We’ve got some time left,” Garrett said. “What do you say we test these puppies?”

He pulled the tarp off, revealing tank after tank of huge snakes. Fitz shuddered involuntarily. Snakes were not his thing. Garrett took one tank at a time to his desk, pulling out the creature within and pouring a student’s potion over the snake. If it shrank, they passed at least. There were a few times when it didn’t get that far—one of the Gryffindor’s potions turned out purple and Garrett looked like he was going to pour the potion on the student instead of the snake—but it was mostly a steady line of smaller snakes.

When it got to his, Fitz sat up eagerly on his stool. Just as he expected, the snake shrank quickly in Garrett’s hands to be a much smaller snake. Fitz grinned at Jemma as Garrett called out, “Well done, well done, now that’s how you make a shrinking potion. Five points to Gryffindor for Mr. Fitz.”

Jemma huffed. “Favoritism.”

Somehow two other potions had gotten between theirs, but when Garrett picked up Jemma’s potion, she grabbed Fitz’s arm, holding him tightly. Garrett eyed the color of her potion carefully, but clearly deemed it not a threat as he doused the snake in it. Instantly, the snake began to shrink, not stopping until it was obviously smaller than even the smallest of the other snakes, the size of a large garden worm. “Hmmm,” was all Garrett said and he put the snake back in its tank.

She looked up at Fitz, smiling shakily. “I think that went well?”

“Are you kidding?” he whispered. “That was amazing! You’re amazing.”

Jemma smiled back, but didn’t let go of his arm until after Garrett was through testing potions. “Alright, kids, it looks like most of you actually did okay on that,” he said. “Essays on shrinking potions due by the end of the week. Get out of here.”

As Fitz and Jemma packed up their supplies, Garrett approached their table. “Ms. Simmons, that was very impressive work today.”

She stared at him, eyes wide with surprise. “Th-thank you, sir!”

“Really nicely done, some of the brightest potions work I’ve seen at this school.” He patted her shoulder. “Highest marks today and I’m sure the highest I’ll see on this project. And uh, take fifteen points for Ravenclaw.”

“Thank you, thank you so much!” When he walked away, she threw her arms around Fitz’s neck. “Did you hear that?”

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Of course, I’m standing right here.”

“He’s never said anything that nice to me, ever!”

“And it only took you three months of extra work,” he said drily, but couldn’t stop smiling at her as they finished packing up. “You deserved it though, seriously. And I think you deserve a butterbeer and a sugar quill.”

She danced in place for a second before following him out of the classroom and heading out of the dungeon. “This just means so much to me, Fitz! You know how influential he is in the Potions community. Maybe he’ll finally start seeing how much work I put into everything.”

“You mean finally start seeing what everyone else bloody sees in you?” He bumped her affectionately. “He’s the only one who doesn’t realize you’re a superstar.”

Jemma blushed, staring down at the floor. “Well, that’s probably because he’s the one I want to impress the most.”

“Yeah, well, impress him you have I think. I don’t think he’ll forget this,” Fitz said. “’Course, neither will I. I can’t believe you threw all the rules away to basically make up your own potion. It’s very Skye of you.”

“I know! I think she’s rubbing off on me,” she said, throwing her head back and laughing.

“She says hi, by the way.”

Jemma stumbled a bit, then quickly got back into step with him. “What?”

“Uh, Skye. I was in the library with her earlier, she told me to say hi to you.”

She looked at him until he met her gaze. Her expression was unreadable, inscrutable, but all of the previous excitement that had lit up her features and made her eyes shine with exhilaration were gone. “You were with Skye earlier?”

Fitz suddenly wondered what he had done wrong. Had he and Jemma had plans that he had forgotten? Had he told her something else previously and then done something else? Had Skye told her something? He felt like he was standing on a rope bridge above a black hole and had no idea which rung would hold him and which would send him plummeting to his doom. “Yeah, uh, yeah. She had a paper due for Transfiguration and you know Skye and Transfiguration. Apparently she hadn’t turned the last one in or it had really been just that bad and Banner had given her detention, so this one was really important and she asked me for help. Of course, it’s Skye, so she asked me for help at the last minute and the only time we could meet was this morning. In the library.”

Jemma nodded slowly. “Well, I’m sure you were a lot of help for her.”

“It went pretty okay. Her essay definitely was not bad enough to get a detention this time.”

Smiling lightly, she said, “I have to go to Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Panicking a bit, he quickly said, “Do you want to do something later? We have that Arithmancy paper due for Hill at the end of the week. Or we could just play chess or something.”

“Sure,” she said and this time her grin was more genuine. “I have to meet with Professor Foster and Antoine about prefect duties before dinner, but I’m free after.”

He was extremely proud of himself for not making a face at her calling Triplett ‘Antoine.’ It was very mature of him. “Great. I’ll see you then.”

“Alright. See you later, Fitz.” Jemma gave him one last smile and headed towards Professor May’s classroom. Even though every responsible bone in his body was telling him that Coulson was going to kill him for being late to Charms again, he couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch her walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

Fitz was notorious for being a fast eater, but he was pretty sure he set a new personal record for dinner that night. At least for a night when he didn’t have an important paper to write or exam the next morning. He still ate his usual amount—and tucked away a snack for later—but finished quickly and waited at the entrance of the Great Hall for Jemma, who he knew would eat only the amount of food that one human stomach could hold.

She met him at the doors not long after he got there, smiling widely at him. “I brought my Arithmancy book, in case you wanted to get started on that essay.”

“Yeah, I got mine too,” he said. “And my chess set.” His Wizarding chess set was one of the few things of his late father’s that his grandparents had sent for him to use at Hogwarts.

“Fantastic. Library?” They fell easily into step on the way to the library, walking in easy silence until Jemma said, “What’s Skye doing tonight?”

Fitz shrugged. “Beats me. Hanging out with some of the Hufflepuffs probably. She should be studying, but you know she isn’t.”

She nodded in understanding. “And then she wonders why we get better grades than her. Should we try to find her and invite her to study with us? We can help her with whatever she has while we do our Arithmancy work.”

Giving an exaggerated sigh, he said, “Well, I already basically wrote her Transfiguration essay for her this morning, I guess I can do all her other work for her too.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry.” She bumped his arm with hers, smiling sheepishly. “I forgot that you had to get up early to help her this morning; you shouldn’t have to devote more time to her schoolwork on top of yours! The two of us will just have fun tonight. Skye will have to learn responsibility for herself.”

“Alright then,” he said, pleased at her response. He hadn’t necessarily intended to sway her away from the idea of making it a trio night, but was never unhappy to just spend time with Jemma.

They settled into their favorite table in the back of the library. It was a small round one that used to only seat two, but they had pulled a third chair up once for Skye and that chair had never moved. Each of them pulled out their Arithmancy book, a roll of parchment, and a quill and ink, along with their notes from the last few classes. Jemma’s notes, as usual, were infinitely neater; Fitz liked to draw in the corners of his, doodles and ideas for spells and tricks for other classes. He pushed his chair up close to hers so they could share Jemma’s notes and they were so close their arms kept brushing up against each other as they worked on their papers. Fitz kept waiting for her to move away or to ask him to back off, but she just smiled at him every so often and asked him his thoughts on the chapters, a faint pink tinge on her cheeks.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been working when Jemma suddenly rested her head on his shoulder, yawning softly. “You know, I do love Arithmancy, but sometimes it can be so dull.”

“It’s rather like Professor Hill that way.”

She muffled her laugh into his shoulder. “Oh, stop, she’s very nice.”

“Nice?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “She failed half the class on that last exam.”

“We don’t take Professor Hill’s class because it’s easy. And both of us passed with flying colours.”

“We did study for almost five hours the night before.” They’d been in this same corner of the library until they’d practically passed out on their books. Jemma’s sleepy face was etched into his brain, the way she’d curled up into a little ball against him until he’d insisted they call it a night.

She seemed to smile at the memory. “And that’s why we’re her best students.” She stretched without her head leaving his shoulder, arching her back to loosen the tension. “Still, I could use a break. What do you say?”

“Can’t say no to that.”

“Chess?”

With her face so close to his, he would agree to just about anything, though he was disappointed to have to move her off of him to get the chess set out of his bag. After they set up the pieces, however, she rested her head right back on his shoulder, as he was clearly more comfortable than the back of the library chairs. That was one of the things he liked best about Wizarding chess: you didn’t have to actually touch the board which meant he didn’t have to move.

He did the polite thing and let her be white, but he was extremely determined to destroy her. He wasn’t going to lose at Potions and chess in one day, it didn’t matter how much smarter she was than him or how fuzzy his brain got when she was around. He had standards. He vaguely wondered whether this cuddling—he could call it cuddling, there was a definite cuddle aspect to it—was a way for her to disarm him. No, Jemma didn’t play dirty. She’d rather beat him fairly. Not that there was anything fair about this.

As her rook took his knight, he said, “I still can’t believe what you did in Potions today. It was amazing. You’re like a Potions genius.”

“Well, it did take a lot of work,” she said modestly, but her smile lit up the room. “It was so much fun though, just trying out different alterations on the ingredients and the methods to see how they would change the results. I bought so many books on Potion theory that my mother started to say she was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it out of my room.”

He took her bishop with his queen. “Check. Is that what you were really doing all summer? You told me that your parents were ‘encouraging your studies’ but that’s not what I thought you meant.”

Jemma pursed her lips as she considered castling her king, but it just would have moved it closer into the line of fire of Fitz’s lone remaining knight. After simply moving her king clear of checkmate, she said, “Well, it’s not like I could have spent all summer at your place.”

“My mum wouldn’t have minded. She really likes you.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” he said as he captured her queen. “Check.”

She moved her rook to block. “I was there for three weeks, you must have wanted to get rid of me by then.”

He stared at her as if she had suddenly suggested they drop all their classes and only take Divination from then on. “No. Never. You could have stayed forever and it would have been fine with me.” Fitz moved his queen to take her rook. “Checkmate.”

“Congratulations,” she said, her eyes searching his face and never once looking at the board. “Well played.” In his mind, he knew that the correct response to this was ‘thank you’ or ‘you too’ or something of that nature, but he couldn’t find the words. Suddenly, he missed regular old Muggle chess, an excuse to have pieces in his hand, something to play with. He had always been one to fiddle with things when things got overwhelming and sometimes Jemma was the very definition of overwhelming. He could at last look distracted by cleaning up or setting up the board. Instead, his hand tightened on the arm of the chair and he traced the carvings on the wood, trying to think about how it was cut and whittled and not how close her face was, how he could just lean in and kiss her.

She licked her lips and Fitz’s heart froze in his chest. Was that a hint? Or a sign? Skye had mentioned signs to him before and, to be honest, he hadn’t been listening because Skye liked to meddle but her meddling was rarely actually useful to his life but it turned it that maybe it was and now he didn’t remember what she had said and he was pretty sure he had stopped breathing and Jemma was bound to notice that. “Do you want to play another game?” she said lightly, interrupting the unending incoherency of his thoughts. “Best two out of three?”

Forcing himself to inhale and exhale, he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” His voice sounded strangled and he hoped she wouldn’t comment. “I can beat you again.”

“Oh, don’t get cocky now,” she said, laughing and poking him in the stomach.

They played another game and, true to his word, Fitz bested her again. As the chessboard was reassembling for the third game so that Jemma could regain some of her dignity, Jemma ran a hand through her hair and the sleeve of her jumper slid up her wrist. Frowning in concern, Fitz reached out and gently took her hand in his, stroking his thumb next to the red marks on her arm. “What happened here?”

She sighed. “Herbology. We’re working with plants with stinging spores and I was more delayed in putting my gloves on than I should have been.”

“Does it hurt? Did you go to the hospital wing?”

“It’s really not that big of a deal, Fitz.”

“That doesn’t answer my questions.”

Her smile was placating. “It stings, a bit, they were stinging spores, after all. And no, Professor Weaver looked me over and said that it was really only very mild, but that if it didn’t feel any better by next class, she has special salve in her office that works wonders.” At Fitz’s hesitation, she added, “Really, it’s fine. I knew that O.W.L.-level Herbology would be challenging and even dangerous at times, I’m up to the task. Gloves before entering the greenhouse next time is all.”

 He was able to return her smile. “Yeah, alright then. Just please be careful, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“It won’t.” She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I’m not the one doing N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration on the weekend.”

Blinking in surprise, Fitz stared at her. “Coulson is supervising me.”

“When he has time, you said, Coulson is supervising you when he has time.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a very busy professor and Head of House. So what?”

“You’re doing very dangerous work! And I know you’re extremely good at it, but what if something goes wrong?”

He frowned at her accusation, affronted by this sudden attack. “Oh, oh, says the girl who spent all summer working on illegal potions!”

Her jaw dropped. “My parents were there!”

“I’m so sure that your parents took days off work to watch you perform underage magic!”

Jemma glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, at least I do research. My potions have roots in theory. Most of your Transfiguration is just you throwing stuff together to see what will stick!”

“Oh, is that what you think I do?”

“Isn’t it?”

Sometimes it was, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. There was far too much adrenalin pumping through his system for that. “I work just as hard as you do and my magic is based in just as much…theory and facts, it’s not just made up.”

She sighed hard. “I know you do. You’re a great wizard, Fitz. But you take such risks and you like to try such dangerous magic without someone like Coulson there and I worry sometimes.”

Fitz chewed the inside of his cheek awkwardly. He took several deep breaths in an attempt to slow his heart rate down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Look, I won’t try anything new without Coulson around at least, okay? Would that help?”

“It would, thank you.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I would just be very upset if something happened to you.”

Placing his other hand on top of hers, he said, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

Jemma opened her mouth to reply, then was clearly startled out of her train of thought. He followed her gaze to where Skye was running through the stacks towards them. The younger girl came to a stop in front of their table, breathing hard. Skye looked back and forth between them quickly. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all,” Jemma said, folding her hands and putting them on the tabletop next to the chess set. “We were just taking a study break so that Fitz could beat me at chess. What’s going on?”

Skye gave him a curious look before taking the last seat at their small table. “Guys, look!” She put a rumbled piece of parchment on the table in front of them. “Professor Banner tracked me down at dinner to give this to me. I passed. I passed a lot!”

“Congratulations, Skye!” Jemma said as Fitz said, “Alright, see, I told you!” When Skye held up her hand, Fitz slapped her five.

Skye smoothed out her essay, grinning at it widely. “Yeah, it’s like I’m a Transfiguration genius or something.”

Fitz snorted. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

Elbowing him in the side, Jemma said, “That means you’ll be able to go to Hogsmeade this weekend, right?”

He was a bad person. He was a bad, bad person because he immediately felt disappointed when she said that and who feels disappointed when a friend can join two other friends on a friendly weekend outing as friends? A bad person. Maybe it was visible on his face because Skye looked back and forth between the two of them again before shaking her head. “Technically, yes, but I’m not going.”

His heart immediately rose in his chest because he was a terrible person, but he tried to feel pity for her. Jemma’s face showed more sympathy than he could possibly manage as she said, “Oh no, why not?”

“May is holding this study session in the common room this weekend for people who she says can use the ‘extra help.’ Some of the upper classmen are staying behind to tutor us. I mean, I have you guys, but she personally asked me if I was going to be there. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had Professor May ask you something but for her a request is actually a demand said in a really soft voice.” Skye let out a long-suffering sigh. “So while you guys are out having fun together, I’ll be working on my Transfiguration. Not that I don’t need it, probably, the only class I’m doing really great in is Muggle Studies.”

Fitz frowned. “You’re Muggle born.”

“Exactly.” She stretched and unknotted her tie, letting it hang around her neck. “But you two should have extra fun together without me.”

As his neck turned red at her obvious implications that he hoped were not obvious to Jemma, Fitz decided that he did not feel bad for her and never would again. It seemed that Jemma had not picked up her hints because she just nodded. “Maybe we’ll bring you back something. Fitz is supposed to buy me a butterbeer because I’m better at Potions than he is.”

Skye raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh yeah? Fitz never offers to buy me a butterbeer.”

He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Yeah, well, you never beat me at a Potions wager.”

“Mmhmm, sure, that must be it.” Skye smirked at him. “At least there’s one good thing about this non-mandatory-but-I-might-kill-you-in-your-sleep-if-you-don’t-show-up-study-session: the Head Boy is supposed to show up and share some of his ‘expertise.’”

“Oh, not this again,” Fitz said with a groan. At Jemma’s incredulous look, he told her, “Skye’s obsessed with Grant Ward.”

“That’s because he’s perfect.”

“He’s not going to go out with a fourth year.”

Skye pointed at him accusatorily. “You don’t know that! We’re going to be in the same room together and he’s finally going to meet me and fall in love with me and it’s going to be great.” She nodded as if she agreed with her own statement. “Or if all else fails, at least I’ll be able to look at how beautiful he is up close.”

Fitz shook his head. “You need to be there to study, not gawk at Grant Ward.”

Kicking her feet up on the table, Skye said, “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent multitasker.”

Jemma giggled and winked at Fitz. “I think it’s cute. You should try to talk to him. I’ve heard he’s very nice, once you get to know him.”

“And gorgeous, don’t forget gorgeous.”

She shrugged, toying with the edge of her Arithmancy parchment. “He’s not my type.”

Skye stared at her incredulously. “He’s everyone’s type.”

“Well, not mine.”                                                                                        

“So what is your type?” Skye said, leaning her arms on the table, eyes wide with curiosity.

Fitz shut his Arithmancy book loudly, clearing his throat in the process. “This seems like a conversation for just the two of you. I don’t think I need to be here for this.” Jemma gaped at him, startled, while Skye just looked exasperated. “I should probably do some prefect rounds anyway. Can’t let Sharon do all the work, now can I?”

Jemma opened her mouth, then closed it again thoughtfully. Finally, she tucked her essay into her textbook and said, “These aren’t due until the end of the week anyway. See you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, sure. See you two tomorrow.” As he got up to leave, Skye caught his eye and shook her head, mouthing ‘chicken.’ Fitz swallowed hard. He never was a very good lion.  


	3. Chapter 3

Of all the daily meals, lunchtime was usually the least eventful. Mail had been delivered and whatever drama leftover from the night before had already unfolded during breakfast and usually not enough drama had occurred yet to make it as busy as dinner. Mostly, people were trying to get last minute homework done or get enough to eat so that their stomach wouldn’t growl in class; rumor had it that one time a student complained they were hungry in a post-lunch Care of Magical Creatures class and Professor Barton had said that if they couldn’t feed themselves properly, they couldn’t be trusted to feed hippogriffs properly and had failed them for the entire term.

Fitz was on his second plate of food, as was customary for him, when Skye came running over and slid next to him at the Gryffindor table. Skye was kind of a chameleon in that she tended to blend in at every house. It was possibly her own secret magical gift. “Code blue, code blue,” she said breathlessly, blowing her bangs out of her face.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” he said around a mouthful of food. “Is someone having a heart attack?”

She rolled her eyes. “I guess it’s technically code blue and bronze!”

He took a long gulp of pumpkin juice. “Yeah, still don’t know what that means.”

“Triplett is planning on asking Jemma out to the Hogsmeade trip this weekend!”

Fitz let go of his goblet and it landed with a thud on the table; orange liquid sloshed out of the sides. “No, he’s not.”

“Uh, yeah, he is,” she insisted.

“And how the hell do you know this?”

“I hear things. People tell me things. I talk to a lot of people.” She shook her head to cut off her own ramble. “Look, however I know things, trust me, I know them. And he is definitely going to ask Jemma out for this weekend.”

He swallowed hard around a lump in his throat as big as his heart. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Skye raised her eyebrows at him. “So? What are we gonna do about this?”

Gesturing in confusion, Fitz said, “What do you mean? What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know!” she said, clearly frustrated. “Challenge him to a duel or something!”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. Jemma will love that. She won’t be offended by that outdated practice at all. She can probably outduel both of us!”

She ran a hand through her hair, tangling up the already messing strands. “Okay, fine, no duel. Oh, oh, what if you got him in trouble so that he can’t go? You’re a prefect, you get people in trouble all the time.”

“He’s a prefect too. He’s a prefect with Jemma!”

Skye let out a long sigh and her dark eyes stared at him desperately. “What if she says yes?”

Fitz tapped his fork against the table, unable to speak for a minute. “Then I guess she wants to go out with Triplett and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“Ugh, that’s such bullshit,” she said, putting her face in her hands.

“We can’t stop her from doing what she wants or being with whom she wants, Skye,” he said, but the words made him feel even more hopeless.

“But you and I both know that she should be with you,” she insisted. “You guys are perfect for each other. You’re like…like the parents I always imagined would pick me up from the orphanage! You’re crazy about her. You don’t see it because you’re you, but you look at her like she walks on air, like she’s made of stars, like you want to just ask her to bear your children!”

He sputtered for a second. “I do not!”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Uh, yeah you do. And she’s always just staring at you when you don’t realize it and giving you these secret smiles that make me melt, and touching you, and she never touches me and that is way more socially acceptable. You two should absolutely be exploiting all of your prefect powers to be making out in every corner of this castle but Trip totally got there first and I will not stand for it!”

He had to smile a bit at her conviction. “Does she really stare at me?”

“Of course she does. Because she wants to be gross with you as much as you want to be gross with her,” Skye said. “So why aren’t you as angry about this as I am?”

“I am, I’m just more…dead inside than angry,” he admitted. A general aura of defeat had settled onto his chest. “I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do. Jemma is going to do whatever makes her happy and I want her to be happy.”

“Newsflash, genius, you make her happy.”

He threw up his hands in exasperation. “So what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to tell her not to go on a date with someone.”

“No, but maybe if you confessed your never-ending love to her, she wouldn’t want to.”

The very idea made him want to throw up even more than he already did. He tried to picture it in his head. Him and Jemma in some empty corridor, him trying to tell her how he felt. Unable to get the words out. Finally saying something and her laughing and laughing before running off with Triplett. Oh yeah, definitely going to be ill. “She already has the option of going with me. Now she just has multiple offers.”

That, somehow, perked Skye up a bit. “Right, you guys were going to go together! Okay, let’s get this straight: were you two going to go together, or were going to go _together_?”

He blinked several times at her, as if that would somehow make that make more sense. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Are you just going together because you always go together or does she want to go with you? Are you a convenience turned obligation or companion turned partner?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed, not knowing if he even wanted to know the answer to such a question. “You’d have to ask her.”

She sat back and crossed her arms. “Maybe I will.”

“Oh god, please don’t,” he begged. He could feel his recently-eaten lunch churn nervously in his stomach. When had he decided eating was a good plan? It was a terrible, terrible plan when you didn’t know how your day was going to go. He should have never said that Divination was stupid, Divination was clearly the best class he had never taken.

The look she shot him was one of pure exasperation. “Don’t you want to know?”

He rubbed his eyes. “I have Arithmancy with her after Defense Against the Dark Arts. If he’s even asked her by then—if he’s even going to ask her and you haven’t gotten wrong information that you’re _torturing me with for no reason_ —I’m sure she’ll tell me. So can we just…drop it?”

Skye sighed. “Fine. But I expect a full report.”

“If there’s anything to report, you’ll be the first to know.” He pushed his plate away, suddenly unable to look at it anymore. “I’m gonna go so I’m not late to May’s class,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t argue with that logic.

And she didn’t, nodding in understanding. “Right, go. I’ll talk to you later.”

Defense Against the Dark Arts passed in a blur. It wasn’t usually his best subject, but he was still good at it. Luckily, there wasn’t a practical element of today’s lesson as May was going over the beginning of a new section; it was things he could read later when he could actually think and not just run crisis scenarios in his head. If worse came to worse, he could always borrow Sharon’s notes. Usually he would think that he could borrow Jemma’s notes but he wondered if she’d have time to talk to him now that she would be busy with her new boyfriend.

He would not throw up in May’s class, he would not throw up in May’s class…

Even though Hill’s classroom was in the same corridor, it seemed like the longest walk he’d ever taken to get to Arithmancy, and that included the day three years ago when the seventh years had cast a prank spell that had made all the classrooms switch places. Jemma wasn’t there yet because she was on her way in from the greenhouses. He sat down in his usual seat close to the front and pulled out his Arithmancy book; the essay he had started with her last night was still tucked inside and he looked at it with a lump in his throat.

When Jemma made it to the classroom, she immediately approached his desk. She pulled out his Wizarding chess set and placed it in front of him. “Thought you might want this,” she said with an amused smile. “You were so eager to leave the library last night that you forgot it.”

“Oh, wow, thanks,” he said sincerely. He tucked the family heirloom carefully into his rucksack. “Sorry about last night, you know how Sharon can be about prefect duties.”

She nodded. “I know. They’re important though and it’s good that you’re keeping up with your own responsibilities, even if it means less time for us to spend together. I should do the same. Antoine’s always good at pulling his own weight.”

The pit in his stomach turned into a gaping chasm at Triplett’s name. “So, uh, anything exciting happen today?”

He could see the visible hesitation on her face. “Uh, Professor Weaver gave me the balm for the spores.” She pushed back her sleeve so that he could see her wrist and forearm. “See, it looks better already.”

Fitz nodded. “Yeah, yeah, it does, I’m glad.”

Jemma bit her lip, leaning her weight back and forth between each of her feet until Professor Hill walked into the class. “Oh, I should go sit down,” she said at the sight of the Deputy Headmistress. It was an excuse, but a good one; no one ever interrupted Hill’s class. “Talk after?”

“Sure,” he said softly and she smiled before taking her seat. He leaned forward in his seat and rested his head against the table just until Professor Hill started talking. She was the only one who scared him more than May, so he forced himself to sit up, and get out parchment and a quill to take notes.

After what was potentially the longest class in human history—he checked his watch several times to make sure time was not moving backwards—Hill finally excused them and Fitz started to feel nervous again. At her desk, he could see Jemma packing up slower than she usually did. There was no way he could possibly take that as a good sign. Too anxious to be neat, he stuffed everything into his bag and then waited for her at the door. Part of him was glad that this was their last class of the day and she couldn’t make an excuse to run off, but the other part of him was upset that he couldn’t make an excuse to dash off to his own class.

Jemma finally caught up to him and they walked aimlessly for a minute, neither of them speaking. Eventually, she said, “Something of note did happen today. Not sure if I would necessarily call it exciting.”

Oh god, Skye was right. How was someone with such poor marks always right about everything else? “What’s that then?”

She took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Um, Antoine asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him this weekend.”

He mentally reminded himself that it would be a poor idea to punch one of the knights in shining armor standing in the hallway. They hadn’t done anything to him. They didn’t even look like Triplett. “That is news. Yeah. Some. News.”

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she said, “That’s your reaction?”

Sighing, Fitz rubbed a hand over the top of his head, then down his face. “I kind of…already knew.”

She stopped short in the middle of the hallway, gripping his upper arm tightly. “You what?”

“Skye told me at lunch.”

“He didn’t even ask me until right before Herbology!” she exclaimed, voice shrill. “And how did Skye know?”

He shrugged. “She knows things, she talks to people.”

“She’s a nosy, gossiping busybody is what she is!” Jemma huffed angrily. “Why would she tell you?”

It took him a moment for him to think of a reasonable answer to that and until he could, he just stood there with his mouth hanging open. “I mean, we’re friends and yeah, it’s gossip about friends and... There’s never any gossip about the three of us, I guess she just thought it was interesting.”

Jemma scuffed her foot against the floor, lips twisted in irritation. “Well, I would prefer if people did not talk about me behind my back, particularly about things that are inevitably inconsequential.”

He perked up at the word ‘inconsequential.’ “Why’s it inconsequential then? Was it…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Was it a bad ask or something?”

“He was perfectly nice about the whole thing, but I told him that I had planned to go with you already so that I couldn’t do it this time.” Jemma poked his shoulder lightly. “You’re not getting out of buying me that drink that easily.”

Fitz held back the overwhelming impulse to pick her up and spin her around the corridor. He wanted to kiss her right then and shout and go laugh in Triplett’s face but he was a mature person so he did none of those things. Instead, he just smiled victoriously. “Oh. You didn’t have to do that. I mean, there’ll always be butterbeer and sugar quills.”

She placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder. “I’m not just going to abandon you, Fitz. There will be plenty of Hogsmeade trips if Antoine wants to go another time. I had already promised this one to you.”

“We don’t have to go because you promised me,” he said sharply. “It’s not really a promise, we just go because we’re friends. I don’t want you to go with me because you think I’m an—” he mentally searched for the word Skye had used earlier “—obligation.”

Jemma’s brown eyes went wide. “I have never thought of our friendship as an obligation.”

“And I don’t want you to. I want you to do what you want and go with whom you want and if that’s Triplett then go, have a good time. Don’t turn the bloke down just because we’ve always gone as a convenience, we can always go again unless someone else asks you out I guess.” Fitz wasn’t sure where all these words were coming from. “I mean, it’s not like Hogsmeade is gonna suddenly disappear, everything will still be there whenever you’re free. So you should have fun while people are asking.”

“If that’s how you feel,” she said softly. She took a long, deep breath. “I’ll let Antoine know my plans have changed. I’m sure he’ll be very excited.” Before he could respond, she said, “I’ll see you later, Fitz,” and headed up the stairs that would eventually lead her to the Ravenclaw dormitory.

Left alone in the corridor, a sudden sense of vertigo overtook Fitz. What had just happened? The floor seemed to spin out beneath him and he stumbled to the wall, which was the only thing that held him up as he felt his knees give out. Who had said all of that? How could he have let this happen? He could feel the bile rise in his throat and he shut his eyes and counted back from twenty to will the nausea away.

There was no way the last fifteen minutes had happened. He had fallen asleep in Hill’s class and everything was a bad dream. There was literally no punishment Hill could dream up that was worse than this. When he opened his eyes, the room was still spinning and it was still the same room and he had still somehow convinced Jemma not to go with him to Hogsmeade.

Every bone in his body wanted to run after her, to somehow beat her to the Ravenclaw common room, to beg her not to do it and claim that…that a ghost had taken over him or that he had somehow Transfigured his brain into a guinea pig and that she had been right about not experimenting without Coulson because he hadn’t meant to say any of that. The very idea of trying to follow her upstairs sounded like a feat that was physically impossible for him to accomplish at this moment in time so instead, he just went downstairs.

The hallway leading to the Hufflepuff dormitory was empty and he had to wait a minute for a young kid to climb out of the hole in the wall before he could get anyone’s attention. He grabbed the kid by the shoulder. “Hey, go back in there and get Skye to come out,” he ordered in the most adult voice he could manage.

The kid gave him an incredulous look. “Why would I do that?”

Grumbling under his breath, he dug into the pocket of his robes and pulled out his prefect badge. “Skye, now. Or it’s fifteen points from Hufflepuff.”

He didn’t have to ask twice and it only took a few minutes before Skye came walking out, announcing herself by saying, “Look, whatever they told you, I didn’t do i—what are you doing here?” Skye gave him a once over as the door closed behind her. “You look like crap.”

Fitz started pacing up and down the hallway. “Triplett did ask her out.”

“Fuck. I knew it.” Skye sighed and played with the ends of her hair. “Did she say yes?”

“No,” he said, and there was a touch of mania to his laugh. “No, she told him no because she was going with me!”

She smiled hesitantly, eyes following him as he continued to pace. “That’s good! That’s good, right? Okay, that sounds like it should be good, so why do you look like you just got told you got Trolls on all your O.W.L.s?”

He leaned against the wall, hands over his head before sliding down to the floor. “Because I just convinced her to go with him.”

“WHAT?”

Fitz whimpered and nodded and then there wasn’t a sound until he heard her rummaging through his bag. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for something to hit you with.” She pulled one of his hands away from his face. “What do you mean, you convinced her to go with him?”

“We were talking and she told me what happened and that she said no and then…I don’t know! All these words kept coming out! It was like I was daring her to go out with him and I couldn’t stop, I didn’t even know what I was doing while I was doing it.” The feeling of dizziness was staring to overwhelm him again. “Then suddenly she was saying that she was going to tell him that she changed her mind and she was walking away and I was here.”

Skye leaned back against the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “Oh my god.”

“And I wanted to run after her and stop her so bad, Skye, I really did, I just…couldn’t.” His eyes were burning and he squeezed them shut against the sensation. “I always wondered why I was a Gryffindor and not a Ravenclaw. Now I know it’s because I’m the stupidest person in the castle.”

“Hey, you’re not…” She trailed off, then sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Okay, let’s think this through. Maybe it’s not the end of the world.”

He choked out of a bitter laugh. “How?”

“Maybe they’ll have an awful time.”

Fitz rolled his eyes and wiped furiously at the tear that had escaped down his cheek. “C’mon. Let’s not make shite up. He’s tall and handsome and he gets some of the top marks in our year and he’s on the damn Quidditch team! And he likes her and she was at least considering going out with him another time, she just didn’t want to let her good buddy Fitz down this time!”

“And he actually had the guts to ask her out.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. So he’s a better Gryffindor than me too. Antoine Triplett for bloody sainthood.”

Skye rubbed his back comfortingly. “Well, there are some girls who aren’t into all that. I’m sure we’ve met one or two of them.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Okay, look, he may have all of those things going for him, but he is not you! You guys are…you’re Fitzsimmons! He doesn’t care about her like you do and I would bet everything I have that she doesn’t care about him like she cares about you.”

Fitz swallowed hard and stared up at the ceiling. “But she’s still going with him. There could be a…spark or whatever they call it. And then there might not be a Fitzsimmons anymore.”

“What if I talk to her?” Skye said. “Vouch for your sudden case of what the hell were you thinking?”

Biting his bottom lip, he winced, unable to look at her. “Uh, right, I might have let on that you told me about him asking her out and she might have not liked you gossiping about her and she might be mad at you now.”

Skye groaned and banged her head on his shoulder. “You know, normally I’d be really pissed at you, but you are way too pathetic to be mad at.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

They were silent for a minute before Skye whispered, “So what are you gonna do?”

“Was thinking about throwing myself off the Astronomy Tower.”

She smacked his leg. “Don’t even joke. Plus, Sharon would totally find some dark magic way to resurrect you to make sure you fulfilled your prefect duties for the rest of the term and no one needs a zombie Fitz walking around crying over Jemma and trying to eat Triplett’s brains.”

He shook his head. “Let no one ever tell you your sympathy isn’t endearing.” Rubbing his face, he said, “Might just crawl into bed and not come out until after this weekend is over. And if they’re Ravenclaw’s newest ‘it couple,’ might not come out until seventh year is over.”

Skye shrugged. “Well, at the very least, it’s a plan.”

He struggled to get to his feet; his head was cloudy with regret and sadness. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow or something. Thanks for listening.”

“No problem.” She gave him a hug. “I kind of feel like this was my fault for freaking you out in the first place.”

There was a significant, vocal part of him that wanted to blame this on Skye, that wanted to chock it up to her psyching him out. But he just shook his head. “No, this was all me unfortunately.” He waved as he turned down the hallway to make the long climb to Gryffindor Tower. “See you.”

“Hey,” Skye said softly. “Tomorrow will be better.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “It won’t be today.”

The Gryffindor common room was full of people hanging out or trying to get in some homework before dinner, but Fitz ignored them all he headed to the fifth year boys’ dormitory. Luckily, all his yearmates were out, so he was able to pull off his tie and kick off his shoes and just collapse onto his bed. He told himself once again as he pressed his face into his pillow that he was absolutely not going to cry. There was no way whatsoever that crying was going to improve this situation.

Eventually, he allowed himself a few tears of frustration, then wiped his nose before lying back down. He couldn’t help imagining what Jemma was doing at that very minute. Was she with Triplett? Were they getting started on their date early? Had she already agreed to be his girlfriend? Were they kissing? He tried to scrub the images from his brain; it was not something he wanted to think about. But the only thing he could replace it with was the image of himself alone at Hogsmeade, and that lonely thought was what he fell asleep to.

Fitz woke up to the sound of a familiar female voice calling his name. He stirred quickly, blinking several times in the dim light of the dormitory at night. “Jemma?”

“No, just me,” she said and he realized it was Sharon. It wasn’t unusual for her to come into his dormitory to ask him something, but it wasn’t really common either. She did seem to enjoy the fact that the girls could get into the boys’ dorms but not the other way around. He sat up quickly, trying to run his hand through his hair in an effort to make it look like he wasn’t a complete mess.

“Uh, hi, sorry, I was just taking a nap. What’s up?”

She eyed him carefully. “We’re supposed to do rounds and you weren’t at dinner.”

“Wasn’t hungry.”

The look on her face could only be described as startled. “Are you sick?”

“What?”

“I’ve known you for five years and I’ve never known you not to be hungry.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m just not.”

Sharon scrutinized him as he put his shoes on. “Are you sure you’re okay? You really don’t look all that good.” She reached out to feel his forehead, and he pushed her hand away.

“Bloody hell, I’m fine!” he insisted, muttering about her not being his mother under his breath.

“Why don’t you just stay in tonight,” she offered. “The Ravenclaws are monitoring too, shouldn’t be a bad night. I can handle it.”

Just the very idea of running into whatever Ravenclaws were out there made him want to crawl back into bed or possibly just die and he could tell that Sharon could see it on his face. “You’re not just doing this so I’ll shift alone when you want to duck out sometime?”

“I’m trying to be nice, Fitz.” She tightened her blonde ponytail. “I’ll tell Coulson you’re sick and see if he can get the house elves to send you up some tea and toast or something.”

“Great.” He kicked off his shoes again, feeling the weight of having to face the castle leave his shoulders. “Thanks, Sharon.”

She smiled at him from the doorway. “Whatever it is, I hope you feel better, Fitz.”

He wasn’t sure that was possible, but he appreciated the thought. As soon as the door closed behind her, he collapsed down onto the mattress and fell back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The next few days passed in a blur for Fitz. He wouldn’t say that he was intentionally avoiding Jemma, but that was absolutely what he was doing. She had approached him once during breakfast about finishing their Arithmancy papers and doing their Potions essays together, but he had begged off saying that Sharon had scheduled them for a lot of prefect hours this week and that he had to do extra work for Professor May so she shouldn’t wait for him to get her own work done. It wasn’t completely untrue—Sharon had somehow managed to get all of their prefect hours spread out over the week so that they’d be completely free this weekend (Sharon was planning to go to Hogsmeade with her own boyfriend, a 7th year named Steve), but he was hardly swamped with work.

Other than that, they had barely spoken for the rest of the week. He had finished both his essays alone in the Gryffindor common room, knowing that it hadn’t been as enjoyable and the work hadn’t been as well done as it would have been with Jemma at his side. He had even avoided Skye, unsure if her pitying stares or her chastising words if he told her he was avoiding Jemma would be worse. He knew he was acting childish, but he couldn’t help the impulse. It hurt to think about Jemma, let alone look at her when nothing had changed except for everything.

When Saturday morning rolled around, he debated whether or not he actually wanted to get up and go to breakfast. On one hand, he was starving as usual. On the other, everyone was going to be making exciting plans and chatting about what they were doing at Hogsmeade and he wasn’t sure if he could handle that. Finally, his stomach got the better of him and he got dressed and trudged his way down to the Great Hall.

He took a seat at the end of the table where he hoped not to bother anyone, focusing only on his food. With most of the upperclassmen out of the castle today, maybe Coulson would be free to let him work on his Transfiguration. If anything would cheer him up, that would. He spread some orange marmalade on a piece of toast and munched on it, trying to get pumped up at the idea.

Fitz was drinking down the last of his tea when he couldn’t avoid Skye any longer because she was standing next to his table wearing a heavy cloak and an expectant gaze. “Uh, good morning,” he said. “What are you all dressed for?”

“Hogsmeade. Why aren’t you dressed?”

“Wasn’t planning on going. And I thought neither were you.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I thought you were trying to avoid the wrath of May.”

She shrugged. “I figured you needed me today more than I needed not to get in trouble today. Why aren’t you going to Hogsmeade?”

He pushed his fork around his empty plate. “Who was I gonna go with? And I didn’t want to risk running into…you know.”

“So what were you gonna do, pout up in Gryffindor Tower all day?” Skye shook her head. “No, okay, I know you’re, like, the saddest boy in the world right now, but I am not here for a Fitz pity party. I am, however, here for a Fitz cheer up party in Hogsmeade. If May’s gonna grill me, I’m gonna make a day of it.” When Fitz didn’t respond, she pushed him down the bench until she had room to sit next to him. “C’mon, you cannot just lock yourself up in this castle. Let’s go have some fun. We can get snacks and drinks and pranks from Zonko’s that you can’t use because you’re a prefect, but I’m not a prefect so I can totally do them and you can watch.”

Smiling lightly, he said, “I guess that could be fun.”

“That’s the spirit. Or as much of the spirit as I’m gonna get from you apparently.” Skye stood up and grinned at him. “Now go get ready and let’s go before May finds me.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll meet you outside.” Fitz trudged all the way upstairs to his dorm room to get his outerwear. A quick glance out the window showed that it had started snowing lightly sometime during breakfast, so he made sure to put on his scarf and grab the gloves he had gotten for Christmas last year.

When he met Skye out on the front steps, she was still smiling. “Look! Snow! That’s a good sign, right?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is this what you’re gonna be doing all day? Everything is a good sign?”

Threading her arm through his, she said, “Yep. The weather is a good sign, the walk is gonna be good, everything is going to be good today because you need it to be good and I am here to provide that for you. Now let’s get going before all the best sweets are gone.”

The walk actually was good; he could tell Skye was doing her best not to complain about the chill, but Fitz liked the cooler weather. He liked winter and snow and the changes associated with the seasons. His mother had even knitted the scarf he was wearing. It made him feel cozy and a bit homesick, but comforted still. There was, as far as he was concerned, a nice breeze as they made their way into the village, which was already bustling with activity.

“Where do you want to go first?” Skye asked. “Zonko’s? Honeydukes?”

“Let’s do Zonko’s,” he said. It was the place they were least likely to run into Jemma and Triplett, he wagered.

The shop was packed as they walked inside and a few of the Gryffindor underclassmen scattered to the back of the store when they spotted him. “Aww, look,” she said. “Your very presence is striking fear into the heart of the cubs.”

“You’re hilarious.”

As he really couldn’t purchase many of the store’s products for his own personal use, Fitz mostly followed Skye around as she stocked up on things like Dungbombs. She offered to get him a nose-biting teacup, which he respectfully declined. After Skye had purchased her few items, they headed out of the cramped space and back into the streets. Every once in a while, people would nod to Skye or wave at her or shout hello and Fitz couldn’t help but smile. “You really do talk to everyone, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “You and Jemma are ahead of me, so I’ve taken it upon myself to always find one person in each class whose notes I can copy and that usually leads to casual friendship until they get sick of me. Plus, our common room is pretty chill, no one ever gets upset if you want to talk or offer to play a game. And once you know one Hufflepuff, you know all of their friends, so one person becomes a hundred people.”

“So all of the Hufflepuffs know me and Jemma?”

“Yeah, I guess. All the other prefects know you guys, of course, and whoever you’ve busted along the way, but you’re kind of my people.” The thought made him smile. Skye picked at the fingers of her gloves, looking at the different places were the thread was growing bare. “All those years in orphanages and foster homes, you get used to forming quick relationships with people and being ready to peace out at a moment’s notice.”

He bit his lip awkwardly, watching as snowflakes began to pile up on her hat and shoulders. “C’mon, let’s go to Honeydukes.”

Honeydukes was even busier than Zonko’s had been, but Skye was able to elbow her way through the crowd. Fitz wasn’t nearly as forceful as she was, and soon they had lost contact with each other. Sighing to himself, Fitz kept to the outer wall of the shop until he made it to the section he wanted to reach. There was a small group of Slytherin girls in front of the Sugar Quills and he waited patiently for them to make their selections and leave before he moved into their spot. He scanned the selection for a second before picking the Deluxe Sugar Quill.

Fitz felt someone press up against him from behind and almost commented on their rudeness before he realized it was Skye. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Buying a Sugar Quill?”

“Is that for Jemma?”

He refused to look her in the eye. “We had a bet.”

“I don’t remember the terms of your bet calling for a _Deluxe_ Sugar Quill, lover boy.”

Sighing, he glared at her. “Do you want one or something? Or do you just want to keep judging me?”

She grinned cheekily. “I’m perfectly fine with just judging you. You’re not in love with me, so I don’t feel the need to exploit you for candy.” She hesitated for a second, then shook her head. “Changed my mind, you can buy me a Chocolate Frog.”

Fitz groaned underneath his breath, but let her drag him around the rest of the store. By the time they were done, he had purchased a significant sack of sweets, including the Deluxe Sugar Quill for Jemma and the Chocolate Frog for Skye. They went back out to the streets of Hogsmeade and Skye found a shady area under a tree for them to sit down. She opened her Chocolate Frog immediately, holding tightly onto it until she could bite its head off. He looked around nervously, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, hoping that he wouldn’t be faced with a nasty surprise.

“Looking for Jemma?” she said, offering him a leg of the frog.

He shook his head at the chocolate, unable to stomach any food. “I just…didn’t want to interrupt their date or anything, is all.”

“What, are you gonna throw the Sugar Quill at her? Or at Triplett? ‘Cuz that might be funny, actually.” She held up her Zonko’s bag. “If we see them, we could throw a Dungbomb at him.”

“That would be very immature.” It was so, so tempting. “She would probably hate us forever.”

Skye swallowed down the last bit of Chocolate Frog. “I think she’d get over it. You guys have been friends since you were like babies here.”

He nodded. “First year. Astronomy.” He smiled fondly, thinking of those nights up in the Astronomy Tower, ignoring all of his Gryffindor yearmates so he could talk to Jemma about space and planets and stars and stellar events.

“The beginning of a beautiful, nerdy friendship.” She stretched her legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankle. “You guys’ll get through this.”

“I’m glad you’re optimistic at least.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed by now, but I’m a very optimistic person.” She leaned back on her elbows and said casually, “Plus, I asked the fates.”

Fitz stared at her in disbelief at what he was hearing. “I’m sorry?”

Biting her bottom lip, Skye said, “Yeah, well, I had Divination on Friday and we were doing advanced crystal ball work, which is bullshit, Blake is really nothing more than a conspiracy theorist hack, but he lets us do whatever we want a lot so I took my crystal ball and I asked it how Jemma’s date with Triplett was gonna go. And, okay, nothing really happened but the stuff in the ball got kinda dark and angry, yeah, angry’s probably the best word for it. I don’t know, I’m not a Divination-er. But then I asked again whether you and Jemma were gonna make up and get together and it got a lot clearer and it was kind of light and more wispy than misty, more like after a rain shower than during a heavy fog, so I took that as a good sign.”

He stared at her for several beats. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

“This is what you did during class?”

“I was trying to help!” she insisted. “And it was something that I could write an essay on with a known outcome by the time the essay was due, so sue me! The fates are on your side here! Team Fitz!”

He leaned back against the tree, shaking his head. “At least I have the fates.”

“It’s really better than nothing.”

“How could you possibly doing poorly in a class where this is seen as a legitimate use of your time?”

“One time Blake used my astrology chart to talk about all his crazy conspiracy theory shit, it was all secret ministry madness about my future. I laughed in his face and told him I was left at an orphanage and my birthday was made up. He really hasn’t liked me since. I’ve failed ever Zodiac-related assignment we’ve ever had.”

Fitz gaped openly at this revelation. “You should talk to May!”

Skye shook her head. “Nope. Not gonna happen, I’m not a complainer. I can handle Blake. Plus, May might not even believe me. She knows how I am in class. She knows how I am in _her_ class.”

Sitting up, he said, “Well, next time you need to make a prediction, let me know first. I’ll personally make it happen.”

“This one’s gonna happen,” she said forcefully. “I know it will.”

“Yeah, sure. If you say so.” He patted her leg. “C’mon, I need a butterbeer.”

The afternoon rush at the Three Broomsticks was in full swing. Fitz held the door open for Skye, and they entered what little space there was. She stood up on her toes, looking for an empty seat. “Oh, look!” She pointed towards the far wall. “There’s a small table over there. I’ll grab it, you grab the drinks?”

He nodded and got in line at the bar with all the other patrons trying to get butterbeers and sodas. Skye’s voice carried throughout the pub as she shouted, “Move it, children!” and pushed a group of third years who were trying to steal their table out of the way. As he waited to be served, Fitz looked around the room as surreptitiously as possible. Unless they were hidden behind some other table, he didn’t see Jemma and Triplett anywhere and he had become very adept at finding Jemma in any crowd over the past five years. Relief settled over his shoulders. He didn’t want to have to deal with them and their…whatever they were doing on their date.

But then a question started to surface in his head. What were they doing on their date? Why weren’t they at the Three Broomsticks, which is where everyone else was? Had they gone back to the castle already? Were they trying to be romantic at Madam Puddifoot’s? Were they being romantic elsewhere? Every new possibility made him want to bury himself in the snow.

Finally, it was his turn to order and he got two butterbeers, then carried them back to where Skye had managed to hold down their table like a fort. He slid hers in front of her and she slurped up the foam that was sitting on top. “Thanks.”

“Did you scare those third years?”

“Whatever, we’re older and bigger and you’re a prefect. They should be scared. I’m in a fighting mood today.”

He chuckled. “Just today?”

“You’ve always gotta be prepared when the Auror is your Head of House.”

Fitz ran his thumb down the handle of his mug, staring into the depths of his drink. “You’re not going to be in too much trouble, are you?”

“I don’t care.” She took a long gulp of butterbeer. “Seriously, it really wasn’t a mandatory event, so the only thing she can be mad at me for is changing my mind and I have a right to do that. She can’t give me detention because I think having a little fun is more important than her stupid oh crap.”

“What?” He looked at Skye quickly. “She’s standing behind you, isn’t she?”

Skye grabbed the back of Fitz’s chair, pushing him towards the table until he was completely facing the wall. “No. Don’t turn around. They’re here.”

Fitz’s blood ran cold. Apparently their date wasn’t going as horribly as he had hoped. Every masochistic bone in his body wanted to turn around and look, but if he saw them, that gave them a chance to see him and that would be even worse. Skye turned her chair so that it was parallel to his, their shoulders brushing and forming a wall to hide their faces. “I don’t think they saw us,” she whispered. “Too many people in here.”

“Okay,” he said, bouncing his foot against the ground nervously.

“I’m just assuming you don’t want to go buy her that butterbeer now.”

“Ya think?” He sighed heavily, staring down into his cup. “You think they’re having a good time?”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “You want me to check?”

“Yes. No. Yes.”

Skye rolled her eyes, but acquiesced to his rollercoaster of demands. Carefully glancing over their shoulders, she checked out the room. “Looks like they’re sitting with some other Ravenclaws. I don’t know if they just couldn’t find a table, but that’s a good sign at least. Triplett’s buying, I guess that’s polite.” Turning back towards the wall, she said, “Jemma just looks like Jemma. She’s not glowing or particularly flushed with happiness, if that helps?”

It did, a little bit, and he nodded his thanks. They sat in silence for a long time before Skye said, “Do you want to go?”

He thought about it, how he could sneak past her and she’d never know. But he sat up a little straighter, steeling his shoulders, and shook his head. “No. No, I want to finish my drink.”

Skye grinned. “That’s the Fitz I know.” He picked up his mug and she tapped hers to it in a silent toast.

When they had drunk all of their butterbeer, they waited for the next wave of patrons to come in to try to sneak out against the flow. With their heads ducked down and scarves covering their faces, they walked as fast as they could out of the pub and back into the brightness of the winter day. “Well,” Skye said as they headed back to the street. “That was eventful.”

“Sure, that’s a word.” Fitz just felt slightly exhausted from the whole endeavor.

“You want to head back before this somehow becomes a weirdly awkward double date?”

“Could we?” He tightened his scarf back around his neck. “I’m not sure I could handle that again.”

She threw an arm around his shoulder. “No problem. Might even be able to make some of that study session, I’ll just pretend I was there the whole time.”

“May will absolutely believe that.” Before Skye could lead them off again, he dug into the pocket of his robe for his money. “Do me a favor real quick? Could you, uh, duck back into the Three Broomsticks and get me a bottle of butterbeer to go?”

“Fitz…”

“I can’t give her just the Sugar Quill, Skye, it’ll lose all meaning.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re absolutely ridiculous?” she said, but accepted the coins he put in her hand. She snuck back into the pub and Fitz went back under their previous tree to wait for her, nervously rocking on the soles of his feet and hoping that Jemma and Triplett didn’t come out first.

Luckily, Skye was as quick as ever and he wondered how many small children she had forced out of the way as she ran up to him with the bottle of butterbeer. “Here,” she said, shoving it at him. “Let no one say I never did anything really, really silly for you.”

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, sticking it in his bag of sweets from Honeydukes. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, before you make me go to Madam Puddifoot’s and deliver her a latte where the foam is a heart or something stupid like that. By the way, if a guy ever wants to ask me out, you should tell him I think that stuff’s really stupid.”

He smiled at the ground where snow continued to gather. “I will let Grant Ward know.”

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I totally gave up my one on one with Head Hottie for you today!” She let out a long, exasperated sigh. “You really must be the saddest boy in the world for me to willingly forgo face time with that face.”

“Must be.”

Skye reached down and squeezed his hand comfortingly. “Hopefully at least slightly less sad now?”

“Definitely slightly less sad,” he admitted. “This was a good idea.”

She smiled proudly. “Thank you. Frankly, I think this was a much better use of my time than sitting in a stuffy common room studying stuff that I’ve already tried to study and not getting it anyway.”

Fitz opened and closed his mouth several times. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“If you and Jemma can’t help me understand Transfiguration and Potions, I don’t know how some random Hufflepuff prefect is supposed to be able to,” she said, and he had to admit that she had a point. “And I don’t think the rest of my class woes are going to be solved in a day.”

He let out a long breath; he hated feeling useless when it came to Skye, particularly after she’d done her best to help him all day. “At least Muggle Studies is going well, right?”

Skye was quiet for a long time. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“What? Whether Muggle Studies is going well?”

“Whether I’m actually Muggle born,” she said softly. Fitz didn’t know how to respond to that. “I mean, my parents could be anyone, you know? I just got dropped off at that orphanage. Sometimes I wonder if they weren’t really, like, some super great wizards or if at least one of them wasn’t.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, kicking up snow. “It’s stupid, I know. I mean, what are the chances?”

“I don’t know, they’re probably pretty good,” he said. “For at least one of them to be a wizard at least. Maybe whoever dropped you off didn’t even know. That’s possible.”

Skye nodded, mostly to herself. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. But then I think, if I was half-blood or something, I probably wouldn’t suck this much.”

“You don’t suck, Skye.” He looked at her until she looked up and caught his gaze. “You don’t, really. Talent has nothing to do with blood. And a lot of the time, marks have nothing to do with talent. It’s about applying yourself and…and…not going to Hogsmeade when there’s an all-day tutoring session that your Head of House sets up and explicitly asks you to attend.”

That got a laugh out of her and she grinned at him. “Fair enough. It’s just so hard being friends with you guys sometimes because you’re so good at everything. And okay, I know I shouldn’t have taken Study of Ancient Runes just because Professor Odinson is hot, but a girl’s gotta live and neither of you take that so I’m screwed there. But when I can come to you for Transfiguration or Jemma for Potions, I just feel like a friendship leech or something.”

He shook his head. “You’re not a friendship leech.” When Skye didn’t look convinced, he added with emphasis, “You’re _not_. We don’t mind helping you, we want you to do well. You just need to find some value in working towards doing well even if it doesn’t come easy. And you are good at some things, you’re great at Charms.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I’m not that good.”

“Coulson knows we’re friends, he’s mentioned you to me before. He says you’re one of his most promising students, he just wishes you’d put in as much effort to the scholarship as you do with the practical.”

There was a hopefulness in Skye’s eyes as she looked at him through her lashes. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely. You know, if you asked him for some extra Charms work to do, I bet he’d do it. He’s the one who speaks with Banner on my behalf so I can do all that Transfiguration work and he supervises me. I bet he’d be really impressed by your initiative.”

Skye snorted. “Yeah, because I’m doing such a great job with all the work I have now.”

Fitz shrugged. “It’s just a thought. I just want you to know that I think you can be great at whatever you do, no matter what that is. You don’t have to be a genius at everything if you don’t want to be. Just pass, okay? Or else you can’t do anything fun and I know you, you can’t handle that.”

“Thanks, Fitz. That means a lot to me.” As they walked up the steps to the entryway of the castle, she said, “Guess I should go face the music with May and maybe get some studying done.”

He patted her on the back. “Good luck. Hope she doesn’t give you too much detention. If you’ve missed all the good tutors and are free to leave the dormitory, you can always come find me. I can help with pretty much anything except for Ancient Runes and Divination because I still don’t know why you chose to take that sham of a class.”

“Some other Hufflepuffs said it would be easy, okay?” She unwrapped her long scarf as they stood in the entranceway of the castle, then reached over to ruffle some snow flurries out of his hair. “I’ll see you later. Don’t spend the rest of the day moping!”

“I won’t, I won’t.” Before she could walk away, he said, “Skye, wait.” She looked at him with wide eyes and he took a deep breath. “Just…remember that you’re not a friendship leech, okay? And thanks for getting me out today. I really needed it.”

She winked at him. “No problem. Don’t worry about them so much, okay? It’ll work itself out. The crystal ball said so.” Skye waved and he let out a deep sigh as she headed to the Hufflepuff common room.

Fitz walked up to Gryffindor Tower, trying to figure out what he was going to do for the rest of his day. There was always next week’s homework to start on, if he got really desperate. Before the Fat Lady could ask him for the password, the portrait swung open and Professor Coulson climbed out. “Afternoon, Professor,” Fitz said.

“Good afternoon to you, Fitz,” Coulson said, adjusting a large stack of books and parchment. “Enjoy your day in town?”

“Yeah, yeah, I had a good time.” It was nice to know that he actually meant it. “Say, I was wondering if you had time this weekend to supervise me with some of that Transfiguration work Professor Banner set aside for me.”

Coulson nodded, then checked his watch. “I’ve got a lot of papers that I was planning on grading tomorrow, but I can do that in my classroom just as well as in my office. I would offer to do it now, but there’s a staff meeting in twenty minutes.”

“That sounds great, sir. Thanks.” Fitz scuffed the floor with his trainers and said, “Sorry, don’t mean to keep you from your meeting, but I just have to ask… If Skye ever wanted to do more Charms work, like I do with Transfiguration, would that be possible?”

The professor raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, she would have to be up to date in all of her classes before Professor May would authorize it. I wouldn’t go against the wishes of her Head of House. But if she could consistently turn work in on time in her other classes like she does in mine, I would have no problem facilitating some extra lessons for her. She’s got a great head for Charms and I’d really like to see her harness that talent.”

Grinning, Fitz said, “Great. I’ll tell her you said that.”

“Please do.” He patted Fitz on the shoulder, smiling kindly. “Have a good night, Fitz.”

As Fitz gave the password to the Fat Lady and climbed into the common room, he thought for the first time today that there was actually a possibility of that happening.


	5. Chapter 5

Monday came around as it always did despite multiple protests for it to stop. Even all the magic that Headmaster Fury possessed could not prevent the inevitable Monday. Fitz couldn’t remember having a more nervous breakfast, not even before his first day of classes ever. He had been excited that day, eager to learn and meet all of his professors and apply knowledge from the books he had already started reading. Discussing with Jemma years later, he realized she had been the same way.

This Monday was another round of double Potions with the Ravenclaws. Part of him wanted to claim sick to the hospital wing and the other part of him thought he might actually get there honestly. Skye’s suggestion had been to screw up whatever potion was assigned—“Um, it’s Potions? Just mess up, you’ll probably end up in the hospital wing either way and Garrett likes you so you probably won’t even get detention. Win/win.”—but then he imagined Jemma caught in the crossfire of whatever slight he managed to create and felt hopeless again.

He was one of the last ones in the dungeon, taking his time to get to what was surely going to be an agonizing class. He walked into the classroom, expecting to find Jemma buddying up with Triplett at his table…but she wasn’t. She was at their usual table, supplies already laid out and prepared for the work ahead. His heart soared in his chest; clearly their date couldn’t have gone that well if they weren’t attached to the hip like he’d seen some new couples.

A new spring in his step, he went to his usual spot. “Good morning.”

She smiled at him, but there was clear hesitation in her face. “Good morning, Fitz.”

As he unloaded his book and ingredients for this week’s potion, he said, “How was your weekend?”

“Oh, it was fine,” she said. He desperately wished for a more descriptive answer, but at least “fine” wasn’t as positive as “good” or something like that. “How was yours?”

“Was able to get a lot of good Transfiguration work done yesterday. With Coulson there supervising the whole time, of course.”

Her smile this time was more genuine. “I’m glad.”

“I’ve got something for you,” he said. He grinned widely as he pulled out her bottle of butterbeer and Deluxe Sugar Quill and placed it on the table between them. “There you are!”

All joy instantly fell out of her face. She looked from him to the gifts and back twice. The only word Fitz could use to describe the emotion in her eyes was hurt; it was like his heart had exploded in his chest. He wasn’t sure what kind of perceived slight she had gotten from this, but he instantly wanted to take it back and apologize. He had no idea what he could have possibly done to cause her pain, but he was desperate not to do it. “It’s…it’s a Sugar Quill,” he said softly. “And butterbeer.”

“I know what it is,” she said quickly. “Thank you.” Then she turned away from him. She didn’t look back at him for the entire class.

Despite Skye’s suggestion, he didn’t need to try to mess up his potion. He was so aware of Jemma’s distress, of the icy wall that she had put up between them, that he was completely unable to concentrate. He almost made several critical mistakes, most of which he only caught at the last minute, right before his potion became unsalvageable. As it was, what he turned in was hardly even Acceptable. He wouldn’t have blamed Garrett for not passing him.

He packed up his stuff slowly, but Jemma didn’t seem to be packing up at all. After they were excused for the day, she went up to Garrett and started chatting with him about who knows what. She glanced back at their table from time to time, as if waiting to see if Fitz would leave. Finally, he got the hint and gathered up the rest of his things. He was determined not to leave and he waited out in the hallway, knowing she had no other choice but to pass by him.

After everyone else had cleared out, Jemma finally left, a resolute look on her face. “Please, tell me what I did,” he begged, falling into step with her.

“I have to go to class.”

“What did I do wrong? I’m sorry, I promise, I want to fix it.”

She stopped suddenly and took a deep breath. Fitz could see the tears in her eyes as she tried to blink them away. “You know,” she said, trying to keep her voice light, “you didn’t have to lie to me.”

He froze in place, trying to think of a time when he had lied to her. Did not telling her how he really felt count? He didn’t think it did. “I haven’t lied to you, Jemma.”

“You could have just told me that you wanted to go with Skye.”

“What?”

“I saw you two there!” Several tears fell down her cheeks and she wiped them away angrily. “I know what you two look like, you couldn’t hide from me even though you tried.”

He shook his head furiously. “No, you’ve got it all—”

“You didn’t have to tell me to go with Antoine so you two could be alone.”

“That is not what happened!” he said, voice rising with each word. “That is the exact opposite of what happened!”

“And you didn’t have to get me that crap just to get me out of the way! I’m not a child, if you didn’t want to have to go get a drink with me, just say so, don’t try to placate me like a fool!” Jemma was openly sobbing now and Fitz wanted nothing more than to hug her.

The only thing he could do was stare at her desperately. “I swear to you, that’s not what this is.”

She shook her head, wiping at her face. “I have to go to class,” she said between sobs and ran up the stairs through a throng of students who were headed down to the Potions lab. Fitz just stared after her, wishing for the first time that he had listened to Skye and let himself get blown up.

\---

The rest of his day continued being just as enjoyable as Potions had been. Transfiguration was nothing short of a disaster. Their assignment for the day was to turn a rabbit into a handbag and the only thing he’d managed to do by the end of the class was to turn his rabbit into a stuffed rabbit. And the tail still moved. Fitz was ashamed even to turn it in. Even the Gryffindors who usually did poorly at Transfiguration had managed to make a passable bag. Even Skye could have probably made a passable bag.

Before he could head out the door with his head hung low, Professor Banner said, “Mr. Fitz, could I speak with you for a minute?”

He wished a hole would open up and swallow him. “Yes, sir?”

Banner looked at the mostly-still-a-rabbit on his desk and then back at Fitz. “Did you have a problem with today’s lesson?”

Shaking his head, he said, “I’m really very sorry, sir. I deserve whatever marks you want to give me. Or no marks at all, really, if you want to just throw it out. I shouldn’t have bothered turning it in.”

“You’re usually the person I point others to when they need assistance, but today it seems like you could have used help.” Banner sat on the edge of his desk, looking at Fitz from over the top of his glasses. “I’m just confused because I saw the work you did with Professor Coulson yesterday. It was much more advanced than this and you did excellently on it, whereas you did very poorly on this. In fact, I think you needed to master this in order to do at least one of the Transfiguration tasks from yesterday so I’m not sure how you managed that.”

Fitz’s shame burned on his face. “I’m just having a bad day.”

Banner nodded. “Normally, that’s not an acceptable excuse for me. You come to my class prepared to do the work or don’t come at all. However, you’ve always been an exceptionally bright and well-prepared student who consistently performs well, and this is most certainly going to be on the O.W.L.s so I need to know that you know how to do this, even if you’ve demonstrated the base skill elsewhere. So I’m going to give you a chance to make it up.”

Fitz stared at him, mouth dry. “Thank you so much, Professor Banner. I really, really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, Fitz. Just try to be here a little bit more next time, okay?” He gave the younger boy a stern look. “I know that this is usually stuff you can do in your sleep, but you can’t sleepwalk through my class.”

“No, I understand. Thank you.”

Banner stood up and floated all of the Transfiguration projects into a box. The ear on his stuffed rabbit twitched. “Why don’t you go on to lunch? Come by my office later and we’ll discuss a time for you to come make up this assignment. I daresay if you’re not having a bad day, it probably shouldn’t take you very long.”

“Yessir. Thank you again. I’ll see you later.” Fitz left the room as quickly as he could, only to be grabbed by Skye as soon as he entered the hallway. “What is your problem?” he said, wrenching his arm from her tight grasp.

“What _the hell_ is going on?” she demanded.

“I was talking to Banner.”

She shook her head, hair flying around her face. “That is not what I’m talking about! What is going on with you and Jemma?”

Fitz closed his eyes and walked away from her. “Don’t want to talk about it, Skye.”

“Everyone is talking about it, Fitz!” she said, following him. “You two had a screaming match in the dungeons!”

This time, he grabbed her arm, dragging her into a small alcove. “What do you mean ‘everyone is talking about it?’”

“Hello, you had a screaming match _in the dungeons_. It’s not like it was private. Seven different people asked me if I knew what was going on.”

“And what did you tell them?”

She glared at him, visibly offended. “What do you think I told them? I told them to mind their own damn business.”

Fitz sighed and leaned his head back against the stone wall of the castle. “Thanks.”

Skye punched him in the arm. “But you need to tell me what’s going on!”

“I don’t know! I swear to god, Skye!” He ran his hands through his hair, running the events of the morning through his mind again. “Even at the beginning of class she was unhappy. And I gave her the gifts and that didn’t help, and then I tried to talk to her after class and she called me a liar and then she was yelling and I was yelling and it just kind of spiraled.”

Anguish was clear in Skye’s brown eyes. “What was she even yelling about?”

He shrugged helplessly. “Something about me being a liar. Your name came up. Triplett’s name came up. I kept trying to apologize for whatever it is I’ve done because I don’t even care, I just don’t want her to be mad at me, and she wouldn’t even let me. And then she ran off to go to class.”

“Which didn’t even happen,” she said with a wince. At Fitz’s questioning look, she rubbed her arm uncomfortably. “One of the Ravenclaws told me that Jemma never even showed up for History of Magic. She was just in the bathroom crying the whole time.”

“Jemma doesn’t skip class.”

“I know, especially not to cry in the bathroom. Especially not to cry in the bathroom over you, no offense.” She sighed. “But then I questioned some other Ravenclaws and they all had the same story and Darcy, she’s a sixth year Hufflepuff, said she went to that same bathroom and, according to her, Jemma was definitely crying in there.”

He banged his head back against the wall a few times. “I have to talk to her. I have to.”

Bouncing anxiously, Skye said, “Well, I checked the bathroom already and she’s not there anymore. Do you think she’ll be at lunch?”

“If she didn’t go to class, I don’t think she’ll be at lunch,” Fitz said. When Skye’s face fell, he rubbed the back of his neck. “But I mean, it’s our best bet.” Skye made a small noise of agreement and they walked toward the Great Hall in silence, an oppressive air of sadness over them. The few people they passed on the way glanced at them and Fitz’s anxiety continued to rise. As they approached the entrance of the Great Hall, he stopped dead. “Do I…do I want to go in there?”

She looked between his pale face and the closed doors, clucking her tongue in indecision. “Honestly? Probably not. Everyone has probably heard about this by now and they’re all gonna be staring at you or wanting to ask you questions.”

He let out a long breath. “Great.”

“And there’s probably only like a one percent chance she’s actually in there.”

His mouth was dry and he licked his lips. “One percent is one percent.” He pulled open the tall, heavy door of the Great Hall and walked inside with his head held as high as possible.

Though he knew that it had really only been a few of the Ravenclaw girls, it felt like he was receiving the force of the hate of the entirely of the house at once. As he scanned the table for Jemma, all he saw were glares. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he and Skye looked at each other at the same time and shook their heads. “We should probably eat something,” she said sadly. “Regroup later?”

“Yeah, alright.” It was literally the last thing he wanted to do. “Look, if you see Jemma or talk to anyone who might, just…tell her I’m sorry for whatever it was and to please let me talk to her so I can tell her that myself. I’ll do anything to make it up to her.”

“I know.” She patted his arm comfortingly, then went to go sit at the Hufflepuff table. Stomach full of lead, he sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors. No one at the table would meet his eye, which was more than fine with him. There wasn’t much time left and he focused on trying to eat anything. Logically, he knew that Jemma had probably retreated back to Ravenclaw Tower if she wasn’t going to class; she wasn’t one for public spectacles. He wanted to do the same, to be honest. He didn’t think he was going to be of any use to anyone in any capacity today, but he couldn’t even accidentally run into Jemma if hid himself away in his room.

Fitz ate quickly before he was forced to go to History of Magic. Luckily, whatever Professor Selvig was talking about today was one of the many subjects the teacher found endlessly fascinating and was able to talk about at length—when Selvig talked, Fitz sometimes wondered if he even noticed that he was talking to a class. Fitz put his head down on his desk, ignoring the excited ramblings of the professor. He tried to ignore the pounding in his head. At some point, he managed to doze off in class for the first time in his life, only startling awake when he heard the sound of chairs squeaking on the floors around him.

He followed the rest of his classmates to May’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class. The desks were all pushed against the wall and Fitz groaned silently. That only ever meant one thing. “Break into pairs,” May announced. “Practical today.”

Rubbing his eyes in exhaustion, he considered turning around and walking right out when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Sharon smiling at him sympathetically. “Want to buddy up?”

“That’d be great,” he said appreciatively. He rolled his shoulders to try and get some of the tension out of them. The pairs arranged themselves throughout the room as May talked them through the instructions of the day.

They agreed that Sharon should go on the offense first, which essentially just ended up with Fitz laying on his arse after every spell from her. Eventually, Sharon marched over to him, her frustration clear on her face. “You forget how to block, Fitz?”

He glared up at her from the floor. “Maybe you’re just really good.”

“I’m better than you, but I’m not that good,” she said. She blew a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes. “Why don’t you go this time, okay? It’ll be slightly less embarrassing if it just looks like I can block you.”

Getting up slowly, he muttered, “I’m not even sure what attacks we’re doing.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be—” The look she gave him was murderous. Then, checking first to make sure that May was on the opposite side of the room, she reached into his bag and pulled out his textbook. Using her body as a shield from where May was standing, she flipped to the section they were currently at and pointed to the spells he had previously made notes on when he had studied last week. “Ring any bells?” She waited until he gave an understanding nod, then put the book away. “Look, I know you’re going through some personal troubles today—don’t give me that look, I have ears—but Professor May will not care, she will give you detention. I won’t even try to block this next one, okay? Just get one hit in.”

Sharon walked back to her previous spot just as May started walking back towards them. Silently apologizing to Sharon, Fitz selected the hardest of the three spells they were supposed to be working on and sent it at her with a blast of blue light. Sharon collapsed quickly and he winced. After giving him an appreciative nod, May simply revived her pupil and continued to move through the ranks. When Sharon stood up, Fitz smiled at her and she pointed at him with her wand and shook her head: not again. True to her word, he didn’t manage to land a single other hex for the rest of the class.

When they were finally released for the day, Fitz walked up to Sharon, rubbing his neck self-consciously. “Thanks for that,” he said softly. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She snorted as she started to head back to Gryffindor Tower; he followed closely behind. “I’m tougher than that. And it’s not a big deal. Even Steve heard what was going on, he asked me to be nice to you on his behalf.”

That made him feel better and worse all at once. “Tell him thanks, I guess.” As she stared at him with eyes full of pity, he couldn’t help but say, “Look, can I just…what did you hear?”

“Nothing super specific.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Just that you and Jemma had a fight after Potions. It was kind of obvious that there was some tension between the two of you in class, but whatever, everyone’s tense in Garrett’s class. But there was like a third year Hufflepuff class or something after ours and they said you guys were screaming at each other in the hallway and I know you, you’re not the screaming type. You always make me be the bad guy when we do our rounds.”

He nodded, swallowing hard. “It got kind of loud.”

She put a hand on her hip and said, “Yeah, well, then they just started talking about Jemma skipping class to cry and I started to tune out because that’s just gossip and I’m not here for that.”

“The other stuff wasn’t gossip?”

“The other stuff was about _you_. You’re my friend. You’re my…coworker,” she said insistently. “If something bad happens that you’re clearly not going to be up for sharing, I need to know that so I know when I need to save your ass in Defense Against the Dark Arts.” She raised an eyebrow at him pointedly.

Fitz felt oddly touched. He’d never really considered Sharon a friend before; a housemate, sure, and definitely a colleague after they had been made prefects together. But now as she patted his shoulder and smiled at him, he kind of just wanted to give her a hug. “Thanks.”

“Let me know how it goes, Fitz,” she said as they reached the common room. She gave the password and the portrait swung open. He was prepared to follow her inside, but something held him back. His only two options in there were to sit in the middle of the common room where everyone would stare at him or to hide up in his bed again. As great as the latter sounded, he knew it would be a poor decision.

Instead, he turned around and headed back downstairs, hoping Professor Banner was in his office. For once today, luck was on his side. He had only knocked twice before being told to enter. “I hope I’m not interrupting, sir,” he said nervously.

“Of course not, I told you to come by.” Professor Banner smiled at him comfortingly, then gestured to one of the chairs opposite his desk. “Take a seat.”

Fitz did as he was instructed, shifting awkwardly. “I wanted to apologize again for my poor performance in class today. It really was inexcusable.”

“Well, thank you for that, Fitz.” Banner examined him closely. “But I think one off day in five years deserves a bit of leeway. In fact, I was giving myself a bit of leeway just now and avoiding some paperwork to really look at these Transfiguration projects you did with Professor Coulson. They’re really very, very good. Do you know what kind of work you want to do after you graduate?”

“Never really gave it much thought, sir,” he admitted. “I know we’re supposed to be thinking about that this year so that we can choose N.E.W.T. classes for next year. I definitely know I want to stay with Transfiguration at least.”

“Frankly, I wouldn’t let you drop it even if you wanted to,” Banner said with a humorous gleam in his eye. He was quiet for a moment. “You’re Muggle born?”

Fitz cleared his throat. “Half-blood, actually. The Fitzes aren’t an incredibly well-known wizarding family if you’re not familiar with small Scottish towns. But my dad died when I was young, so my mum raised me mostly in the Muggle world except for holidays and the occasional summer I’d spend with Gran and Grandad Fitz. Took her a while to get her to agree to even let me go to Hogwarts.”

“They’d probably fire me if they heard me say this, but Hogwarts is not for everyone, even if you do come from a wizarding family,” Banner said quietly. “I do certainly think that it’s for you though. Your performance in not just my class, but in all of your others proves that.” Fitz flushed from the praise as well as the shame from his performance, or lack thereof, today. “Not being as entrenched in wizarding culture as some of your peers, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Tony Stark?”

Fitz sat up in his seat as if he’d been petrified. Of course he’d heard of Tony Stark. Stark Industries made everything: the highest-powered brooms, the best cauldrons, even some of the most inventive pranks at Zonko’s were Stark products. “Yes, sir, I have.”

“Tony and I went to Hogwarts together, we were in the same year,” Banner said. “We keep in touch. Internships aren’t as common here as they are for muggles and Tony has never particularly shown any interest in a protégé, but Tony likes to collect great minds. He’d rather have the smart people working for him than against him, he says. I think he’d be interested in you.”

There was a roaring of sound in his ears and he just stared at the professor. “You do?”

“He would deny it if I said so, but not even Tony could do this in his fifth year,” Banner said, picking up the elaborately carved footstool with cushion Fitz had transfigured on Sunday and putting it on his desk; it had previously been a stack of outdated textbooks. “I think he will be impressed with your talent, creativity, and ingenuity.”

Finding it hard to breathe, Fitz just nodded repeatedly. “Thank you, sir, that’s very kind of you to say.”

“However, Tony could absolutely turn a rabbit into a handbag, so let’s make sure you’re able to do that, at least for the O.W.L. committee, shall we?” He smirked at Fitz. “How about Thursday, same time as now?”

“Absolutely. I’ll be here.” Getting a sense that he was being dismissed, Fitz stood up. “I’ll let you get to your work.”

Banner sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose. “If I must. I hope you start having better days, Fitz.”

At that moment, Fitz wondered what Professor Banner—or any of the other professors—know about his private life. Obviously they could hear the talk as much as anyone else. “Thank you, sir.”

“And I will be sending an owl to Stark. I’ll let you know what he says.”

“I look forward to it,” Fitz said, instantly wincing at the words. “I mean, thank you. See you later.” As he left the office, door shutting solidly closed behind him, Fitz checked his watch: it had been five whole minutes since had thought about how much he hated his life.


	6. Chapter 6

Fitz still had some time left before dinner, but there was no use going to Gryffindor Tower where he would face the same pitiful options as before. Instead, he headed to the library. He didn’t think he’d be able to concentrate now any more than he had been able to in class, but there was no harm in trying. Maybe just being in the library, surrounded by all the books and people who weren’t allowed to talk to him without Ms. Hand yelling at them would distract him.

Fitz automatically headed to his usual table and his heart jumped into his throat when he saw someone already sitting there. A female someone with dark hair. His first thought was that it was Jemma and he could talk to her and she wouldn’t yell at him because this was a library and she would respect that. He started walking faster, dodging people through the stacks. He was almost at the table when she looked up and it was…Skye. All of the energy in his body instantly evaporated and he slumped into an empty chair.

“Hey,” she said, putting down her quill. “I was hoping Jemma would come here.”

“I thought you were Jemma,” he said grumpily.

“Oh, sorry.” She pursed her lips at him. “Still haven’t been able to talk to her?”

“Of course not, why should anything possibly go right during the worst day ever?” Skye raised an eyebrow at him, and he glared up at the ceiling. “After my best friend yelled at me and I guess decided not to be my friend anymore in a very public manner, I was unable to transfigure a stupid rabbit into a simple purse, slept my way through History of Magic, and got destroyed by Sharon in Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

She nodded, impressed by his ineptitude. “Wow, it’s like you were me today.”

“Gotta admit, I kind of felt like you. No offense.”

“None taken.”

He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them, taking several deep breaths. The only good thing that had happened today was Professor Banner being so nice to him and telling him about _Tony Stark_ , but he couldn’t even tell her about that. It felt wrong. It would feel wrong to tell anyone about that before Jemma, who was the only person who would really understand his excitement and the way his heart hadn’t stopped beating practically out of his chest since the name was mentioned. But he had a feeling if he tried to storm Ravenclaw Tower he’d be hexed in ways that even Professor Foster wouldn’t be able to fix. Fitz looked up at Skye, who had gone back to her parchment. “What are you working on?”

“Ancient Runes,” she said casually, glancing at her textbook. “I actually didn’t miss that entire tutoring thing on Saturday.”

“That’s good,” he said, proud of himself for being able to feel joy, even if it was for someone else. “So one of the Hufflepuffs is gonna tutor you in Ancient Runes from now on?”

“Actually, Grant Ward tutored me.”

Fitz just stared at her in silence for a good minute. “You are a liar.”

“I swear to God,” she said, grinning madly. “I’ve been wanting to spill to you for days but you were busy with Coulson on Sunday and your life kind of imploded today so I thought that it wasn’t necessarily the best time. But okay, so on Saturday I go back to the dorm and I’m ready to fight, and May pulls me aside and is all, ‘Why are you late?’ and I give her this big speech about how you needed me and loyalty to friends and how important it is to be there for the people you care about, but how I was there to work and put in the effort and bring up my grades and how I want to be a dedicated student because I have something of value to give! And she just looks at me for like, five minutes, and then she gives me ten house points for understanding the core values of being a Hufflepuff.”

“Wait, you’re tardy for a study session, and you _earned_ house points?”

“Right?!” Skye looked around quickly for Ms. Hand, then lowered her voice. “Right? And she asks me what I need help in and I told her that you and Jemma help me with Transfiguration and Potions and Herbology—oh, and she was all way to go with the inter-house unity stuff, though not in those exact words obviously—but that you guys don’t take Divination or Ancient Runes, and then she just sits me down next to Mr. Head Boy himself because he’s apparently great with all languages, which includes Ancient Runes!”

Fitz shook his head before putting it back on his arms. “That is actually too ridiculous not to believe.”

Skye let out a happy sigh. “It’s really too bad that Blake can’t actually do Divination because I must have been an awesome person in a former life.”

“What the hell kind of awful stuff did I do in a former life?”

“I don’t know, maybe you were a murderer or something.” Skye reached out and patted his head. “I still like you at least.”

“You’re not the problem,” he mumbled into his arms.

“If I could trade myself for Jemma for you, I would. But you know I’m awful at Transfiguration. Unless that would be a charm,” she said thoughtfully. “If it was a charm, I might be able to do it.”

Fitz looked up at her seriously. “I wouldn’t trade you for Jemma.”

Her smile was sweet, if a little patronizing. “Well, now you are a liar.” Putting her stuff away, she nodded towards the entrance of the library. “Wanna go eat? If we get to dinner early, we might be able to sneak in and out before the real crowds get there to judge you.”

He considered this. The earlier he ate dinner, the earlier he’d be able to take a long, hot shower and sleep as if this day never happened. “Yeah, let’s do it. You know, I think even Banner heard about the fight.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “Teachers are just as gossipy as the rest of us. Plus, didn’t you do it right outside Garrett’s room? You know that guy is telling everyone who will listen that the mean Simmons girl yelled at his precious Fitz.”

He winced because that could actually be true. Desperate to change the subject, he said, “So tell me about your time with Grant Ward.”

Grabbing his shoulder excitedly, she said, “Oh, man, he is even more beautiful up close. His eyes, and his hair, and his jaw, and his cheekbones.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry I asked.”

She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “And he’s quiet, you know, I didn’t expect him to be that quiet because of the whole Head Boy thing and because he plays Quidditch, jocks are usually the loud type. But he’s actually a very thoughtful person. And he was a good tutor too, he really knew what he was talking about. I even tried to pay attention to what he was saying and not just how he was saying it because did I mention his lips?”

“Mmm,” he said noncommittally.

Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she said, “You don’t really need to hear about this now, do you?”

He sighed. “Sorry. I care that you got help with your homework, really. That’s important to me. It’s just…do you ever get that sensation that everything matters a lot, but also not at all?”

Skye looked like she was trying to find something to connect to, but ended up just shrugging. “Yeah, don’t think so. But I’m sorry. About, like, everything today.”

“Thanks.” As they approached the doors of the Great Hall, his stomach started twisting itself into knots in protest of his plan of trying to put anything into it. Skye seemed to sense his hesitation, because she grabbed his arm and continued to pull him along.

“You have to go in there eventually,” she said. “And you get super cranky when you don’t eat, the world doesn’t deserve you depressed and hungry.”

Luckily, they were one of the first people there, as planned. They split up to go to their house tables and Fitz sat on the very end of the Gryffindor table, trying to make himself as insignificant as possible as he put a small amount of everything on his plate, picking at his food. Eventually, others started trickling in and he avoided anyone’s gaze or questioning stares by keeping his eyes on his plate.

Sharon took the seat next to him; he wasn’t sure if he was happy to have a friendly person there or upset because it wasn’t some little first year who would just ignore him. “Hey, Fitz,” she said kindly. “How are you doing?”

“’m alright,” he said, breaking off a piece of roll and trying to chew it. Everything was dry and tasteless to him.

Seventh years Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers, the latter of whom was Sharon’s boyfriend, sat across from them. They each gave him a comforting smile, so Fitz could only assume Sharon had spoken to them about his situation. “Sharon said that you’re good at Transfiguration,” Sam said, his tone suggesting he was mentioning it as more than just casual dinner conversation.

He didn’t feel particularly good at Transfiguration at the moment, but he nodded. “I’m not bad.”

“You’re even doing N.E.W.T. level work?” Steve asked. Sharon buried her face in her hands.

After giving Sharon a questioning look, Fitz said, “Yeah, Coulson lets me do it in his office on the weekends. It’s fun.”

“Could you tutor us?” Sam said in a rush. “Usually we’re pretty good students, but this N.E.W.T. stuff is kicking our butts and we really need good grades on the exam. Sharon said that even though you’re a fifth year, you’re probably the best person in this whole school to ask.”

Sharon reached over the table and punched him in the shoulder. “I said you should ask him. I also said _not today_!”

As Sam rubbed his arm, Fitz actually found himself smiling. “It’s okay,” he told Sharon, then looked at the guys. “I can try to tutor you. I don’t know if I can help explain things the way that Banner would in class since he wouldn’t have taught them to me yet, but we can go through the spells and I can show you how I would do them and we can do theory things, if you think that will help.”

Steve smiled at him. “At this point, I think anything will help us. We really appreciate it. Thanks.”

If anyone had asked Fitz if he had sat on the side of the Gryffindor table that looked at the Ravenclaw table on purpose, he would have denied it, but he absolutely did that, of course he did. It was easy to see when Jemma came in. She was with two of the girls from her year as they flanked her on the way to the table. Her face was red as if she had been crying again and it felt as if he had been kicked in the chest. His eyes followed her as she took a seat near the middle of the table and the Ravenclaws started passing bowls of food towards her. He glared at one boy who passed a bowl of stuffing her way; she hated stuffing, especially the kind with mushrooms in it.

To his left, Sharon cleared her throat. It seemed she had been following his line of sight. “You’re not going over there, are you?” she whispered. “I’m not saying you should be worried because they have knives, but you shouldn’t not be worried.”

He shook his head. “No, I just…wanted to see how she was doing, I guess. Was hoping she might be willing to talk to me.”

“I would not get your hopes up for that,” she said gently. “At least not today.”

Sighing, he destroyed his mashed potato and gravy volcano, letting the brown liquid cover his plate. “Yeah, no, I get you.”

After a moment of awkward silence, Sam cleared his throat. “You know what I love? Dessert. I just love dessert. Anyone else want some ice cream? Or some cookies. These cookies are really good.” He offered the tray to Fitz, who took one to be polite.

He listened to the three of them chat for a while, making the occasional comment about Coulson or one of the other professors. They told him about preparing for the next Quidditch game after the break and he didn’t have the heart to tell them that it had been almost two years since he had been to a game; the common room was always so quiet during one and he hated to lose the chance to focus. He made a mental commitment to attend the next one though, as a thank you to Sharon for being so kind of him.

Fitz actually got lost in the conversation, so much so that he almost missed Jemma getting up from the Ravenclaw table. She was alone and heading towards the Great Hall door. Fitz got up quickly, swallowing hard. Sharon seemed to see what he saw and shook her head. “Fitz…”

“I have to try,” he said desperately. “I’ll see you later.”

He took off at a jog towards the entrance of the Great Hall, dodging other Gryffindors and anyone else trying to come in to eat dinner. By the time he got out, she was halfway up the stairs. “Jemma,” he called to her. She hesitated for a second and he could tell that she had heard him, but then she kept walking. “Please! Just talk to me for a second.” Taking the stairs two at a time, he caught up to her at the second floor. “Jemma, just please tell me what I did wrong.”

When she looked up at him, her eyes were rimmed red. “I can’t do this with you right now, Fitz,” she said. Her voice was hoarse.

“Just…just tell me what I did,” he pleaded. “I’ll fix it, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry, whatever it was.” He wanted to hug her, to hold her hand, to do anything to keep her there until she talked to him. “Please, we can fix this.”

She was shaking as she covered her face with her hand. “I don’t know what to tell you that I haven’t already.”

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying desperately to remember what had set her off earlier. “But I don’t understand! Skye and I didn’t go to Hogsmeade together. I mean, yes, we went together. But she only went with me so that I didn’t have to go alone because you were already going with Triplett! We didn’t have any plans before that.”

“But I only had plans to go with Antoine because you told me to go!”

Every time he was reminded of that, it hurt a little bit more. “You only weren’t going because you thought that you had to go with me.”

Jemma poked him hard in the chest. “I never thought I _had_ to go with anyone, Fitz! I was making my own decisions!”

“Well, maybe you might have wanted to go with Triplett!”

“What on earth would have given you that idea?” she yelled, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. That’s not even what matters here.”

He let out a long, aggravated breath. “Then please tell me what matters here because I still don’t know.”

Wiping away the tears in her eyes, she said, “What matters is that Skye is in love with you and I am not getting involved in all of this.”

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. Taking several steps back, he looked at her, absolutely flabbergasted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Please don’t pretend, it’s insulting.”

“I am not pretending!” He ran his hands through his hair, trying to get ahold of his footing in this conversation. “Skye is not in love with me, Jemma. I swear to you, this is not what you think.”

She sniffled loudly. “You two are always together—”

“The three of us are!”

“Even when I’m not around, you’re with Skye,” she insisted. “Skye wasn’t going to go to Hogsmeade, except then I couldn’t go and then suddenly she could go so you two went alone.” That was factually true, even if Fitz wanted to debate it in actuality. “She’s always going to you for help with everything. She’s always talking about you when you’re not there. Asking me whether I think you’re smart or handsome, things like that.”

Shaking his head, he said, “I really think you’re misunderstanding this whole thing.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, biting her bottom lip. “You don’t see the way she looks at you, Fitz. And you look at her too. And you suddenly seem to have a poor opinion of Grant Ward when you’ve idolized him in the past.”

He made a noise in the back of his throat, affronted. “I’ve never _idolized_ Grant Ward. I always thought Steve should have been Head Boy over him.”

“I don’t want to argue semantics with you!” She stared at the floor for a minute and he could tell she was crying by the way her shoulders shook. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were hard. “Regardless of the words you want to use, it doesn’t negate my point. You held Ward in high opinion before Skye began speaking positively of him. What am I supposed to think about that, Fitz?”

“That I think it’s funny that she has a silly crush on the Head Boy, but really all the fanfare over him is a tad ridiculous?” When her lips trembled, it took all of his inner strength not to pull her to him and hug her tightly. “It kills me that you’re so upset over this,” he whispered. “Because it’s nothing, it really is nothing.”

When she said didn’t respond, he cautiously put his hands on her shoulders. “Please believe me. I’m begging you. We’ve been friends for years, why would I lie about this?” he said, voice rough. “I promise you that I don’t have feelings for Skye. It’s not like that between us. We’re not dating, I don’t love her. I’m sorry I made you think that.”

She looked up to meet his eyes and he could tell immediately that she wasn’t convinced. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t stop the fact that she has feelings for you and I don’t want to be in the middle of that. I’m…” Jemma had to stop and she took a moment to steady herself. “I’m happy for you two, no, no, I know you say nothing’s going on, but still.” Her eyes were hooded with sadness as she stared past him. “Three people is very complicated and I don’t want to be in the middle of anything. Skye is my friend; fighting with her is the last thing that I want to do.”

“There is nothing to fight about!”

“There is _everything_ to—” She cut herself off with a small gasp and closed her mouth tightly. “I said I wasn’t going to do this. And I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t do this with you right now. I have to go.” Jemma pushed past him and before he could even try to reason with her, she said firmly, “Do not follow me.”

Fitz couldn’t even watch her go. He stood there for a long time, waiting for the empty feeling in his stomach to consume him whole. Eventually, his feet started working and he wandered the castle. There was no destination in mind—he wasn’t even sure if there was a functioning mind at that point as he stared as his feet, one foot moving in front of the other—but eventually he sat down in a dark corner. The stones were cold beneath him, but he didn’t so much feel them as just acknowledge the feeling.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, legs pulled up to his chest so he could rest his forehead against them. Curfew was going to happen eventually, but he didn’t care anymore. When he was a first year, the upperclassmen had tried to scare them by saying that there were things in the castle that could eat them alive, that sometimes the floors would open up and swallow lost children. He really, really wished that was true.

Time had begun to lose all meaning when he felt a soft hand on his arm. He looked up slowly at Skye, who leaned over him. Her face was shadowed by the lack of light in wherever they happened to be, but he could tell that she was concerned. “Hey,” she said, rubbing his shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you. You okay?”

There was only one thing he could think to say. “Are you in love with me?”

“Are you drunk?”

“Jemma thinks you’re in love with me.”

Skye sat down, her posture mimicking his. “Yeah, Sharon told me you went to talk to her. I’m assuming it did not go very well?” Fitz could feel tears welling in his eyes and he pressed his arm against his face, hoping to stem them off. “Hey,” she said, squeezing his knee. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“It was like not even talking to her.” His breathing was shallow and he hiccupped. “She just kept saying that something was going on between the two of us and you know that’s not true and she wouldn’t believe me.” When he looked at Skye, the tears ran down his cheeks, but he couldn’t bother with hem. “Why wouldn’t she listen to me?”

She pulled her legs closer to her chest, licking her lips nervously. “I don’t know, Fitz. Can…can you tell me more?”

Making a noise of aggravation deep in his chest, he said, “She said that I only started saying negative things about Ward when you started liking him, which is confirmation bias if I’ve ever heard it! And she said that you’re always talking about me when I’m not there!”

“Oh. I may be guilty of that.” When Fitz looked at her, scandalized, Skye just said, “Well, girls talk about guys. I like to see what the Jemma field is for you and maybe I try to see how she compares the other guys to you. You always come out positively, if it helps. I guess it could seem weird though.” She ran her hand through her hair anxiously. “I was just trying to see if maybe you wouldn’t be the one to be the epic-love-confessor, maybe she would be.”

Fitz wiped at his cheek. “That wasn’t all. She also thought that I told her to go with Triplett so that you and I could go to Hogsmeade alone.”

Grasping his wrist sharply, Skye said, “Did someone tell her we went to Hogsmeade?”

He shook his head slowly. “She said she saw us there.”

“Ugh, Fitz!” She covered her face with her hands and leaned back against the wall. “Well, yeah, I kind of think we’re in love too!”

“And what the bloody hell does that mean?”

She rested her head against her knees for a second before looking at him. “Ok, let’s look at this from Jemma’s point of view, okay? She gets a date from a cute guy in her year, not sure if she’s gonna go for it and then a guy who—you know what, not gonna even beat around the bush here—a guy that I know she’s crazy about? Yeah, tells her to go for it.”

Fitz hesitated, then said, “She also kinda said that she wasn’t really thinking about going with him, I think.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Skye hit him several times on the shoulder and back of the head with her open palms. “I would say you weren’t allowed to speak to Jemma ever again because you just fuck things up but that would just…confirm her…biases!”

“I know, I know, I messed up!” he said, pushing her hands away.

Huffing out an angry breath, she said, “So, the guy she likes tells her to go on a date she doesn’t even want to go on! When she was supposed to go with the guy she likes! That’s a self-esteem implosion if I ever heard of one. And maybe she is enjoying herself on this date despite it not being the guy she likes because he’s tall and cute and charming and he plays Quidditch so he has nice arms.” When Fitz visibly pouted, Skye glared at him. “You deserve everything I’m giving you right now. Nice arms, nice butt even. And he’s a prefect and one of the top of your class if I’m not wrong, so you’re not even beating him that much there.”

“You’re a treat,” he said drily. “No wonder I’m so in love with you.”

“So maybe she’s having a good time on this date,” Skye continues. “But then she spots the guy she actually likes, but he’s not alone. He’s with an attractive female friend who wasn’t even supposed to go on this outing—an attractive female friend who she’s been secretly suspicious of!” She groaned and put her head in her hands. “It looked like we were on a secret date.”

“Well, we weren’t.”

“Fitz, we hid from her.”

He shook his head. “Technically, we were hiding from her whole date situation!”

“Oh, like there’s a difference!” Skye snapped. “And even if there was, she doesn’t know that! In Jemma’s world, you told her to go out with Trip so you could secret-date me and you won’t even admit it even though she caught you!” Skye elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re kind of an asshole.”

“Thanks a lot.” Fitz rubbed the bridge of his nose where a headache was pounding. “I don’t want her to think I’m an asshole or would ever treat her that way—not intentionally. Nor do I want her to think that I’m in love with you. She said that I stare at you.”

Skye snorted. “I know that’s not true. I’ve been friends with you two almost two years and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you look at anyone other than Jemma.” When Fitz sighed and stared at the ground, Skye groaned under her breath and rubbed his back gently. “She doesn’t look at anyone else either, you know? I mean, if she’s not looking back at Triplett, I think you’re pretty safe.” When Fitz did nothing to respond other than sigh again, Skye said, “Okay, is there anything else I need to know before we try to form some kind of plan of action here?”

Fitz didn’t want to think more about Jemma crying and yelling at him. “I don’t know. Just that you might have more luck than me. She said she didn’t want to fight with you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, um.” He took in a long breath and tried to think. Usually, he was good at getting words right and remembering them well, but he hadn’t exactly been in the right mindset earlier. “Threesomes or…or three people are hard and complicated. You’re her friend, she doesn’t want to fight with you. And that’s about the point where she told me to leave her alone and not follow her and I got to the impression that she basically never wanted to speak with me again.”

Skye smiled slowly and Fitz wondered what was so amusing all of a sudden. Wrapping her arm around his shoulder, Skye leaned her head against Fitz’s. “Oh, man. You’re not going to believe me, but as soon as you’re not buried under this crushing emotional devastation, you’re going to feel really happy. I promise.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into her. “Yeah, I don’t believe you.”

“It’s gonna be great. Seriously.” She ran a hand over his hair and it was kind of soothing. “This day will be only 99% bad in hindsight.”

 He laughed bitterly at that. “Great, looking forward to it.” Neither of them spoke for a long time, and Fitz hoped that his heart would start to beat normally again eventually. “What am I going to do, Skye? How am I going to get her to talk to me? I mean, she told me not to follow her. She didn’t want to talk to me at all.”

“I mean, you can see why now, right?”

“Yeah, but how am I going to fix it?” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “All she did was cry. You know I would do anything to make her not cry but I have a feeling there’s nothing I can do.”

It was clear to her what he was getting at and she sighed. “This is really 100% less about me than it appears to be on the surface.”

“But she might listen to you,” he said. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it hard. Skye bounced her knee anxiously, strong façade already crumbling. “Maybe you can tell her that you’re not in love with me and that you only went with me to Hogsmeade so I wouldn’t be there lonely because I foolishly told her to go with Triplett—you know, the truth. If we both tell her, she might believe us.”

“I’m not sure why she would believe me over you,” Skye whispered, nudging the tip of her shoe against the stone floor. “You’ve been friends a lot longer than she and I have. And don’t think I haven’t tried already to talk to her today. You’re not the only one she’s avoiding. And doing a good job of it too.”

“Maybe you could just try?” he pleaded. He was ashamed of how his voice cracked and he cleared his throat as she looked at him, compassion in her dark brown eyes. “I can’t lose her, Skye. Not over something stupid like this.”

She shook her head. “Loving each other isn’t stupid.” Sighing, she rested her head against his shoulder. “I’ll do my best, okay? Give her a day to get over it a little more and then maybe she’ll be ready to talk to me.”

Feeling the slightest bit relieved, Fitz wrapped one of his arms around her back, pulling her a little closer. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She closed her eyes and got comfortable against him. “Just remember what I said about being happy and think about it, okay?”

He nodded. “I’ll try.” All he could think about now was the way Jemma had looked when she had cried and it seemed a lot like he would never feel happiness again. “You know, I’m not in love with you, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s pretty well established. I’ve only watched you moon over Jemma since the day I met you. Not in love with you either, if that has to be said.”

“No, no, that’s fairly unnecessary,” he said, smiling lightly. “But uh, might love you, just a little.”

He felt Skye smile against his shoulder and she patted his leg. “Feelings pretty mutual. Would love you a little bit more if you could finally tell Jemma you’re actually in love with _her_ instead of you two crying at each other all the time, but, you know, I think we’ll get there.”

Fitz rolled his eyes. “Fates tell you that?”

Shrugging enigmatically, she said, “You know, maybe they did.”

It wasn’t the most clear or optimistic of futures, but at that moment, Fitz was going to take what he could get.


	7. Chapter 7

A few days later, he and Jemma still had not spoken. Despite what Skye claimed was her best effort at talking to Jemma, she had continued to avoid them both. Apparently, it was a larger castle than Fitz had ever realized. Pushing the scrambled eggs around his plate with his fork, he tried to get his head on for the day and not just anxiously anticipate what was clearly going to be yet another awkward Arithmancy class where they both sat in their seats, looking straight ahead at whatever Hill happened to be saying.

As another Gryffindor passed a plate of bacon over him, he grabbed a handful of slices. At least he could try to cheer himself up with bacon. It tended to help a little. Overhead, the owls had begun to fly in to deliver the daily mail. Letters, packages, and newspapers were deposited across the Great Hall. Crunching on his bacon, he focused on his breakfast until the most beautiful—and probably most expensive—snowy white owl he had ever seen landed in front of him. It regarded him with intelligent eyes before placing an envelope on the table in front of him with its beak.

Fitz swallowed his food quickly. It wasn’t that unusual for him to get mail—his mother wrote him letters and his grandparents liked to send him care packages from time to time—but this owl was completely unfamiliar to him. It also seemed to be waiting, which was unusual for a note from his mother. After wiping his hands on his napkin, he picked up the envelope curiously. His name was written in artful red script on the front and when he turned it over the Stark Industries seal was pressing the envelope closed.

He couldn’t breathe. He literally couldn’t breathe for a moment and he pounded on his chest to get his lungs to function again. With shaking fingers, he peeled away the seal, desperate not to damage the red wax too much. When he got it open, he pulled out two pieces of parchment from the envelope. The top one was written in precise, professional print:

> Dear Mr. Leopold Fitz,
> 
> Mr. Stark has recently received a glowing recommendation of your work from Professor Bruce Banner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As an organization that is always looking for innovative talents, Mr. Stark is very interested in learning more about you, your work, and what you bring to the field, as well as what you could potentially bring to Stark Industries. He requests an opportunity to meet you in person for an informational interview that can highlight the best of your abilities as an inventor and a visionary.
> 
> It is to our knowledge that you are still a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and would find it difficult to come to our headquarters in London due to your studies. With that understood, Mr. Stark is willing to make a trip to Hogsmeade during one of Hogwarts’ scheduled weekends or arrange a meeting at the school itself, whichever is feasible at the earliest date. Please use the provided owl to respond to this letter with the dates of scheduled Hogsmeade weekends, and we will make proper arrangements.
> 
> We here at Stark Industries would like to congratulate you on your success and will continue to support you in all of your future endeavors. Mr. Stark looks forward to meeting you soon.
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> Pepper Potts  
>  Assistant to Tony Stark

Fitz read it four times, soaking in every word. Tony Stark wanted to meet him. _Tony Stark_ wanted to meet _him._ He wasn’t sure what Banner had said, but he’d never wanted to kiss a professor before this moment. When he finally looked up from the letter, the owl was still staring at him and Fitz realized this actually required action on his part.

He retrieved a quill, his least wrinkled piece of parchment, and an almost empty ink pot from his bag and tried to write back in the most professional way possible. “Sharon,” he said suddenly, trying to get her attention. “When’s the next Hogsmeade visit?”

She jumped in the middle of stirring sugar into her tea, startled. “Um, I don’t know,” she said, looking at him funny. “I don’t think they have a date yet. Not until after the holiday, though, why?”

“Uh, no reason,” he said. “Thanks.” He conveyed that in the most adult language he possibly could before rolling up the parchment and attaching it to the owl’s leg. The owl bowed to him before flying off majestically.

It was then that he remembered there was a second letter in the envelope and he switched pages suddenly, hoping he hadn’t forgotten to send them some crucial information. This page was less polished: the writing was at different sizes throughout the parchment, with different consistency ink, as if the author had walked away and gone back to it with many quills. There were a few splotches of ink randomly dotting it as well as what looked like a small coffee stain.

> Fitz,
> 
> In all the time Bruce has been working at the old alma mater not once has he told me about a student, so I can’t say I’m not intrigued. He told me about some of the projects you’ve done on the off time, but he’s prone to exaggeration and I don’t actually believe any fifth years are doing Transfiguration projects in their spare time. Since that’s a lot of lies for him to get me to come to Hogwarts just for a reunion, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I want to see what you can do in person. You and I can talk about Transfiguration, you can show me some of the things you’ve been working on, and I can see whether Bruce is lying about you being better than me when I was a fifth year (he is lying, you’re not better, but I’m willing to take on whatever kid is close). If you’re even half as good as he says you are, I’d say it’ll be worth my time.
> 
> -Tony

Literally everything else he owned in his life didn’t matter anymore because now Fitz had a personal letter addressed to him from Tony Stark. It took several minutes for him to catch his breath because he just kept reading it over and over: the casual way he addressed him, the way he pressed extra hard on his periods. Fitz wanted to run around and wave the letter in the air, he wanted to scream about it. He needed to tell Jemma right away.

All of his excitement immediately drained out of his body as he looked over at the Ravenclaw table. She wasn’t there. She was never there anymore when Fitz was in the Great Hall, as if she knew when he would be around. Dropping the letters on the table, he coughed hard, unable to breathe around the pressure in his chest. He couldn’t tell her. Jemma wasn’t talking to him. He felt like he was going to cry and he pressed his hands against his eyes. Even if he did tell her, would she listen? Would she even care?

This was the greatest opportunity to ever happen to him, but it didn’t matter if he couldn’t even tell his best friend.

He carefully folded the letters back into the envelope, then tucked that envelope into the back of his Transfiguration book so it wouldn’t get lost. Sharon grabbed his arm as he started to walk out of the Great Hall. “Are you okay?” she asked, studying his face. He hoped it wasn’t red or blotchy.

“Just need to grab some ink to get me through the day,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t really the truth either. “I’ll see you in Charms.”

Fitz was determined to be hyper-focused through the rest of the day. He took detailed notes throughout Charms, trying to forget that he had a letter from Tony Stark just sitting in his bag waiting to be acknowledged in his life. He should tell Coulson, a voice in the back of his head told him. He should tell Banner, and Skye, and Sharon, or even his mother, who wouldn’t even know who Tony Stark was, but would be proud of him anyway because she was always proud of him.

As rational as that voice was, it sounded hollow to him. He only wanted to tell Jemma. She was the only person who would really understand what it meant to him. And god did he miss her. His heart thumped painfully in his chest and he forced himself not to think about it again as he rushed to his next class.

By the time lunch came around, he was exhausted from not thinking about everything. As Sharon complained at him about something he wasn’t even listening to—possibly whatever they had done in Astronomy last night, Sharon hated Astronomy—he just wanted to sit down and eat lunch and maybe sleep at the table.

He helped himself to really much more than his fair share of chips, chewing on their potato-y goodness. It was only when he saw a familiar flash of honey-colored hair hurrying quickly away from the Ravenclaw table that he remembered how little potatoes actually fixed everything. Jemma couldn’t have been there very long. It was clear that she was going out of her way to avoid him.

Fitz busied himself by making a sandwich from the tray of cold cuts in front of him, laying slices of meat and cheese and trying to not let it remind him of all the great sandwiches Jemma had made him when she had spent time at his house over the summer. It was foolish to let everything remind him of her, except everything reminded him of her.

He was reaching for more chips when he felt someone lean against his back. “Heeey there, Fitz,” Skye said, smiling charmingly at him. “You’re in a good mood, right?”

He laughed joylessly. “What do you want, Skye?”

“It’s just, with Jemma treating me like I don’t exist, I’m kind of falling behind in Potions and I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind doing what she usually does?” She gave him a winning smile. “Please? I’ve got stuff missing from last week and Garrett assigned a killer paper today.”

Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he said, “Yeah. Sure. We can work on it later, okay?”

His lack of enthusiasm was evident and her face fell. Skye stole one of his chips, watching him for a reaction. When he just sighed, she shook her head. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired today.”

“Sure, that absolutely sounds like something I believe.” She grasped the back of his robes, tugging firmly. “C’mon, let’s go.” Fitz allowed himself to be dragged from the table and into the hallway. He could tell immediately that they were heading towards the Ancient Runes classroom, but she set a leisurely pace. When neither of them said anything after a minute, she kicked him gently. “You gonna talk to me?”

He stared straight ahead, chewing the inside of his mouth. “I need you to talk to Jemma.”

“She’s the one avoiding me, Fitz.”

“Well, I need you to try harder!”

She flinched away from him, clearly taken aback out his outburst. When he didn’t immediately apologize, she stared at her feet. “I don’t know what you want me to do. She avoids us in meals, she’s never in the library, we don’t have any classes together. I’d break into Ravenclaw Tower, but I can’t solve their stupid riddles.”

A headache was developing behind his eyes and he rubbed his temple. “Yeah, I know. I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to put you in the middle of all of this.”

“I’m not sure any of this is even about me.” She puffed her cheeks in frustration. “I don’t even know why Jemma thinks something is going on here that’s not because I feel like I’ve never given her that impression. I feel kind of scapegoat-y for what is clearly long-unresolved issues between the two of you that I think I’ve hinted that you two should have resolved a long time ago.”

There was nothing untrue about what she was saying and he felt like the worst friend in the entire world. “You’re right. Whatever problems Jemma has with me, it’s up to me to set her straight.” He squeezed her shoulder lightly, attempting to smile at her. “I’m sorry that whatever is going on with us has affected your friendship too.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. She just looked at his face. “Not having her around is really messing you up, isn’t it?”

That was one way of putting it. He certainly felt messed up. “It’s Jemma.”

Letting out a low groan, Skye gave him a shove. “Write down her schedule for me, I know you have it memorized. I will talk to her. I will make her talk to me. I’m going to get it through her stupid, genius head that it could be her dying wish for me date you and I still would not do it. There is a line and it will not be crossed!”

Fitz’s heart soared at her sudden commitment to the cause. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll stalk her if I have to. You don’t just throw away five years of perfect friendship over a misunderstanding that I think she’s misunderstanding on purpose!” She gestured emphatically towards his bag. “C’mon, schedule, I don’t have all day.”

As he wrote down Jemma’s schedule—which, yes, he did have memorized—he said, “You’re going to just show up at all of her classes?”

“If that’s what it takes. I will go to her classes, I will follow her back to the common room. I am faster than she is and I don’t care if those Ravenclaw girls are mean to me again. They are vicious, I’ll have you know, in a really highbrow way.” She took the parchment from him and put it in her pocket. Setting her hands determinedly on Fitz’s shoulders, she said, “I’m going to make this happen. I’m getting you your Jemma back.”

Nodding with relief, he felt his shoulders relax. “Thank you. Really.”

“You’re welcome. But you are totally helping me with Potions tonight. After I annoy Jemma into friendship with us again, you, me, library tonight. Not letting me fail. It’s not a date because I’m not even going to joke about that, these things apparently get us into trouble!”

At this point, if she asked him, he would do all of her work until he graduated, but he just chuckled. “I will be there. It’ll be great.”

“Damn right it will be.” She patted him hard on the back. “And if I am volunteering—not to mention doing all the work—to be the awkward third wheel in this unresolved sexual tension friendship, I’m going to need you to put in some effort to make that unresolved tension go away! No more sulking around while every fifth year asks Jemma out. Put up or shut up, Leopold.”

He shook his head quickly. “I don’t care about that anymore.” At her unconvinced look, he insisted, “I don’t care if she dates Triplett, or anyone else. She can date Grant Ward if that will make her happy.”

Skye made a noise of indignation. “She cannot, I will fight her.”

Rubbing his face in exhaustion, he said, “I just want my best friend back.”

The look she gave him was sad and pitying. “Oh, Fitz.  That’s not going to happen, at least not the way you think it will. Things can’t just go back to what they were before just because you want them to. Your relationship is going to be different and the sooner you accept that, the better.”

He head was pounding, and he held back a groan. “I don’t want anything to change, Skye. Everything was fine before.”

“Clearly it wasn’t if some guy asking her out made everything blow up.” She pushed some hair out of her face and shook her head. “Okay, look, let me just get her talking to us and then we’ll figure out the rest. I’m gonna go to class.” She patted him on the back a few times. “You go do the same and we’ll meet up in the library later, okay?”

“Right. You and me, kicking butt at Potions.”

“Damn right.” She winked at him before going into Professor Odinson’s room and letting the door swing shut behind her, leaving Fitz standing there alone. He was desperately trying to cling to whatever bit of optimism Skye provided, but still felt just as helpless and hopeless as he had before.

\---

The library was unusually busy that night. He heard more than one person speak unkindly about their Potions homework; apparently Garrett had been in a mood that day and had taken it out on all his students, despite their year or house affiliation. Luckily, their usual table was open and he spread all of his books out across it to dissuade anyone who might ask anyone to join him. He wasn’t up for company on a usual day, but particularly not today.

With the general hum of so many people in the room, it created an almost calming background noise that was actually easy to work with. There was a large paper due for History of Magic coming up soon, and he was determined to get his research done that night before all the good books were taken by everyone else. It was a trick that Jemma had taught him back in their second year and had always served them well. He was surprised, in fact, that she hadn’t already checked all of these out herself.

Fitz worked best in shifts, half hour on History of Magic, then a half hour on Charms, before coming back to History of Magic. His lack of attention always used to drive Jemma crazy until she got used to it and he would try to focus if they had worked on something together. His mind got distracted when it had to focus on one thing for too long, and then he would start thinking of Transfiguration projects he wanted to try or any other manner of procrastination that ended up doodled in the margin of his books.

He was in the process of switching from History of Magic to Arithmancy when he heard a very soft, “Hello.” Looking up from the table, he was shocked to actually be in Jemma’s presence. She was looking at him. She was speaking to him. She was smiling at him. Gesturing to the covered table, she said, “Are these seats taken?”

“No, no, I just didn’t want anyone else to sit here.” He moved everything out of the way, piling his currently unused textbooks to the side. “It’s kind of busy in here tonight.”

“I noticed.” She sat down in one of the chairs gracefully, folding her hands on the table. “Skye told me that you would be here.”

“I’m just helping her with Potions,” he said quickly. “Garrett’s on the warpath today, apparently he hates everyone who isn’t him, and she needed help and that’s all.”

She placed her hand on his gently. “I know, Fitz. Trust me, I’ve heard more than one person complain about Garrett today. Skye and I talked for a really long time. She told me everything.”

Slightly wary about what was included in ‘everything,’ Fitz managed to smile. “I’m glad that you two got to talk.”

Neither of them said anything for a beat, and then she nodded to his stack of textbooks. “I see you got to the History of Magic research first.”

“Someone had to use your tricks against you.” He took his Charms book off the top of the pile and pushed the rest into the middle of the table. “But I can share.”

She stared wistfully at the books before grabbing his arm, regret clear on her face. “Fitz, I’m so sorry about everything. I should not have jumped to conclusions. And I shouldn’t have yelled at you, that was wrong of me.”

He didn’t dare move, for fear of scaring her away. “It’s alright. I guess I can see how my actions could have been confusing. I’m sorry that what I did hurt you.”

She cried a little bit, then wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “You didn’t do anything though. I was just being…” Jemma trailed off and her eyes focused on a point far beyond the table. “It was silly to think that you and Skye were together. Right?”

It was clear that she was looking for confirmation and he nodded firmly. “Right. She’s interested in men like Grant Ward and I’m fairly certain she only likes me at all because I do her Transfiguration homework. And I—” He stopped cold, unsure how to finish that sentence. “I’d probably end up strangling her before I ended up dating her. Could you even imagine it? It’d just be Skye ordering me around all the time. She’d be the least supportive girlfriend.” When she giggled, Fitz hesitantly held her hand, rubbing her smooth skin lightly with his thumb. “I just missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she said, covering his hand with both of hers. “So, so much. I was so lonely without you.”

“So why didn’t you just come find me?” he said before he lost the nerve. “I searched for you everywhere.”

She bit her bottom lip sheepishly. “It’s going to sound silly.”

“I don’t care.”

Holding his hand tightly, she said, “I was afraid that you would choose Skye over me again. That’d you’d say you didn’t need me anymore.”

Fitz hadn’t been beaten up since primary school, but this was approximately what he remembered getting punched in the face felt like. “I would never do that.”

“It already sort of felt like you had, Fitz.”

“But I tried to explain—”

“And I didn’t want to listen, I know.” She wiped at her eyes again, pushing her hair back away from her face. “But even days later, I was still worried that you wouldn’t want me around anymore and that you two were fine on your own. That you were fine without me.”

He shook his head forcefully. “Never. Never, never. I’ve been an absolute wreck.” He pulled her hand up to his face, pressing it against his cheek. “Seriously, I’m a mess. And you know Skye can’t take care of me like you can.”

The smile she gave him was full of so much care and affection, he thought he could die right there. “Well, that’s certainly true.” Her eyes softened with compassion as she brushed a few of his errant curls off his forehead. “You do look tired.”

Brushing his thumb where a lone tear ran down her cheek gently, he said, “So do you.”

Jemma nodded in agreement, closing her eyes as she leaned against his hand. Fitz was going to say something else before he saw Skye at the end of their stacks and approaching quickly. He tried to ignore her, looking instead back at Jemma who was lacing her fingers through his.

“Hey, guys,” Skye said hesitantly. “How’s everything?”

Immediately, Jemma pulled her hands away, sitting up straight in her chair. If Fitz didn’t know her as well as he did, he may not have seen how closed off her face became, but it was obvious to him. Apparently, Skye’s heartfelt speech about how she and Fitz were not in love and were not going to be had not yet sunk in all the way, or at least hadn’t been believed completely. Fitz decided to hope that she just needed more time to process as Jemma smiled up at Skye. “Everything’s good,” she said. “Thank you, Skye.”

Skye smiled, visibly relieved. “Well, that’s because you two didn’t have Garrett today. You know he doesn’t just want us to turn them in whenever we have our next class, we have to bring these to his office tomorrow? He might actually be the devil.”

Wincing, Fitz said, “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

“The offer does not go unappreciated, but I was hoping you would do it?” she said to Jemma. “No offense, Fitz, she’s just way better.”

“I’d be happy to help, Skye,” Jemma said. “Tell me what we’re doing.”

Skye pulled the last chair at the table close to where Jemma was sitting and put her Potions book down in front of them. “It doesn’t even really have anything to do with what we’re studying? I think he’s just mad at something so he’s trying to take it out on everyone by giving an essay. It’s all theory and stuff. I wrote down the prompt somewhere.” She searched for a minute before pulling out a scratch piece of parchment.

After reading it carefully, Jemma frowned, thoughtful. “This is a bit different. But not completely unlike what I worked on this summer, so I believe I can help. In fact, Garrett actually set aside some books from the restricted section for me to check out last week, but I never got a chance to get them.” It went unspoken that she’d never picked up the books because she had been avoiding the library to avoid them. “Let me go see if Ms. Hand still has them for me. I bet there’s something in there that could really jazz up your essay.” She smiled at both of them before heading off to the reference desk.

“I can’t believe you did it,” Fitz said softly as he watched Jemma’s retreating figure.

Shrugging, she said, “When I stalk someone, I don’t do it halfway.”

“Did you really?”

“I got to her classes before she did, I was there before she got out, I followed her back to Ravenclaw Tower. When she wouldn’t let me in the Tower, I waited outside until she finally agreed to talk to me.” Skye leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “Three prefects who saw me took away house points, but whatever, Hufflepuff loses the cup every year anyway.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “What did you tell her?”

“Just the truth!” Skye pulled parchment out of her bag so that she would be ready whenever Jemma returned. “I don’t love you, you certainly do not love me, we’re not dating and never have been and never will be. I left out the part where the reason is your endless love for her because I felt like that shouldn’t come from me. It took some rather tedious repetition, but I finally broke her down.”

Looking at Jemma’s empty chair and feeling the lingering sensations of her touch against his hand, he said, “Seemed like it was working.”

She snorted. “Yeah, until I showed up.”

Oh. Maybe Skye knew Jemma better than he thought. He winced. “Caught that, huh?”

Skye sighed. “It’s a work in progress, I think. My suggestion is that you avoid sitting next to me for the next two years and that we never, ever touch again.”

“No touching? What about like a high five?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. Her wound is fresh and still healing, even if it was a wound that we didn’t mean to create and doesn’t have that much basis in reality as we know it. Eventually, I think we could work our way to a high five.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “But you know, if she didn’t care about you so much? There wouldn’t be a wound to heal.”

Fitz licked his lips slowly, trying to accept that as the comforting statement it was meant to be. It was hard when the ache is his chest had yet to fully disappear.


	8. Chapter 8

The next few days felt like an attempt to get back to normal. Sometimes, everything was perfectly okay. They would joke before Arithmancy class or discuss History of Magic papers and wonder if Selvig wanted information from the book or his own outlandish theories represented in their essays. But then sometimes they were in Potions class and Triplett would glance at them and Fitz would suddenly lose all train of thought and they wouldn’t be able to regain their conversation momentum. Or either of them would bring up Skye’s name and it would get awkward and Fitz wondered if he was never supposed to talk about her even though they both saw her almost every day. He avoided saying positive things about her most of the time in case Jemma thought he was complimenting her too much and he felt ridiculous doing so.

“Why can’t things just be the way they were?” he complained to Skye. They were waiting for Jemma at the library while she was discussing something with Professor Weaver. Skye and Fitz sat on complete opposite sides of their table, despite the table itself being round and more conducive to three people sharing three parts equally.

Skye tapped the point of her quill against the wood of the tabletop. “Things were said that cannot be unsaid. Fears and worries and feelings. This whole thing basically spontaneously combusted, you can’t really come back from that.”

“Well, I don’t have to like it.”

“Suck it up, buttercup. You wanted Jemma back and I got her back for you. Nowhere was promised that things were going to go back to the way they were because they can’t. I wasn’t the one saying the irreversible things; that was you guys. I’m just stuck here dealing with it.” She gave him a pointed look. “Or don’t you remember, Mr. You-Should-Go-Out-With-Triplett.”

Fitz glared at her. “You’re feeling unsympathetic today, aren’t you?”

She shrugged carelessly. “I just know that there’s only three ways this is gonna go from here. 1: This thing continues to deteriorate, you both cry some more, I end up choosing sides. Will probably ask the fates again on that one. 2: You guys realize this new thing isn’t the old thing, won’t ever be the old thing, get used to it and try appreciate it for what it is and hope it still doesn’t go the route of door number 1. Or, my personal favorite, 3: One of you finally does something and tells the other how you really feel so you can move on from this stagnant wasteland you call a friendship.”

“Our friendship is not a stagnant wasteland!”

Skye hit her fist on the table with every word. “Things. Were said. That cannot. Be. Unsaid!” She gestured to the door, where Jemma still had not arrived. “You are not the platonic duo that you’ve pretended to be for years. Now you are just awkward sexual tension pretending that nothing happened. Things have evolved. They cannot go back. So, once more, with feeling, either accept it as it is now and maybe get used to it, or do something to keep this train moving down the track. Those are literally your only options. Enjoy.”

Fitz ran a hand through his hair, breathing hard. “Okay, so what if I do try to talk to her and things just end up going horribly wrong again? You notice how often things go horribly wrong, right?”

“Then congratulations, Fitz, you get door number 1.”

“I don’t want our friendship to deteriorate.”

“Newsflash, genius, it’s not looking so great for the non-deteriorating option right now.”

Fitz groaned and put his head on the table. “I hate everything about this.”

Sighing, Skye said, “You should just kiss her. Just do it. She’d let you. She wants you to. I mean, I can’t confirm this with her words since I literally have not spoken about you to her in private since The Great Resolution because I am smarter than that, but as the smartest person in this friendship who is also somehow not a super genius, I still know that you should just kiss her.”

He poked his head up to sneak a look at her. “How do you possibly put up with us?”

Choking on a laugh, Skye shrugged. “I’ve kind of been considering the fact that I definitely need new friends, but I get attached way easily. And I’m very invested at this point, I don’t want to see all my hard work go to waste.” She opened her mouth to say more, but changed her mind and instead said, “Hey, Jemma! We thought Weaver had fed you to a Venus Fly Trap or something.”

Fitz turned to smile at her as she took the remaining chair at the table between him and Skye. Jemma smiled back at him. “Oh, no, I just had a lot of questions. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem,” he said. “Skye just had some questions about Potions that I thought you’d be more qualified to answer.”

“You’re just as good at Potions as I am,” she said, but flushed happily. “What’s going on, Skye?”

As the girls worked on Potions, Fitz tried to concentrate on his History of Magic essay until he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see Sharon standing over him, her hair wet from what he could only assume was a recent shower. “I’m glad I found you,” she said. “Coulson wanted me to let you know we didn’t have to meet with him tonight. He had a last minute detention to give.”

Fitz leaned back on the back two legs of his chair. “Always nice when someone else’s poor fortune is our gain.”

“Right?” She grinned. “I was scared I wouldn’t have time to get any work done tonight. Quidditch ran late and I’m already exhausted; Sam’s a good Captain, but not a great timekeeper.”

“Well, you’re welcome to join us,” Fitz said, surprising himself. He quickly looked around the table, looking for any detractors. “We were just working on some things.”

Sharon looked surprised, then smiled. “Oh, uh, sure. If no one minds.”

Jemma didn’t say anything, but Skye shrugged and said, “I am always up for an extra fifth year helping me get through things. Do you take Divination, by any chance?”

Pulling up a chair from another table, Sharon took the open space between Fitz and Skye. “Sorry, I don’t. I’ve always been told that class was kind of a waste of time.”

“Oh, it is,” Skye said. “But it would be less of a waste of time if I was getting better grades.”

Sharon smiled sheepishly at Fitz. “I didn’t bring any books or anything with me.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got all mine,” he said. “What do you want to do first? Defense Against the Dark Arts? I think we’ve got another practical tomorrow.”

“You probably do,” Jemma offered. “We had one today.”

Nodding, Sharon watched as he pulled the book out of his bag and turned to their current section. “Probably a good idea, I think you could use the extra help.” Fitz winced, but nodded; he deserved that.

Jemma, however, gaped at Sharon, a look of clear offense on her face. “Fitz is excellent at Defense Against the Dark Arts!”

The look Sharon gave her was indecipherable. “Yeah, well, you weren’t there last week.” She smirked at Fitz. “My back still hurts a little bit.”

“Did I apologize for that? Because I am sorry.” He bit the inside of his cheek sheepishly. “Though my backside wasn’t feeling so great either.”

“It is not my fault that you can’t block. I volunteered at least.”

Jemma face was getting redder by the second. Finally, she turned her chair completely towards Skye and started talking very quickly about all the different ingredients in whatever potion they were discussing. Fitz couldn’t keep up with it, so he didn’t know how Skye was supposed to be able to.

Taking a deep breath, he smiled at Sharon. “So, has Steve given you any hint as to what’s going to be on the O.W.L.s?”

“No, he’s useless. You know Steve, he thinks everything should be fair and equal and that means not giving me any hints on what’s going to be on the exams.” She carded her fingers through her damp hair. “I’m sure as we get closer to the tests, I’ll be able to squeeze something out of him. He knows how important it is for me to get Exceeds Expectations or May won’t let me do N.E.W.T.s.”

Jemma’s eyes flicked up from Skye’s Potions book, over to Sharon and Fitz, then back down again. “Because you want to be an Auror, right? Antoine said that has always been a plan you two shared.”

Fitz bristled at Triplett’s name, wondering how he always seemed to be brought up in conversations that were not about him. Sharon just nodded once in assent. “Yeah, Auror training as soon as we graduate from Hogwarts.” She looked at Fitz carefully. “You do know he’s my cousin, right? And not like cousin the way all old wizarding families are kind of cousins, but like he’s coming home with me for the holidays type cousins.”

He hadn’t been aware of that, and was somewhat uncomfortable at the idea that Sharon was related to the enemy. “I don’t think it’s ever come up.”

Placing her soft hand on top of his, Jemma said, “Fitz isn’t really all that familiar with all the old wizarding families, not having been raised here.” She looked at him and smiled. “Peggy Carter is the head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department for the Ministry. Professor May worked under her for years.”

“Whoa, what?” Skye said, no longer pretending she wasn’t listening. “Your…whoever knows May? Was May’s boss?”

“Aunt Peggy knows pretty much everyone. Everyone loves her,” Sharon said with a fond smile.

“Could she possibly get May to stop hating me a little? I would be very here for that,” Skye said.

Fitz kicked Skye lightly under the table, then immediately regretted it, having forgotten the no touching rule. “Maybe you should just get Grant Ward to help you again, everyone loves him.”

She gave him the finger. “Maybe you can shut up.”

“And May doesn’t hate you!” Jemma insisted. “Really, Skye, you don’t need anyone’s help but your own.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears, dipping her quill in ink. “You know, a lot of the Carters hold very high positions in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one who hasn’t passed Auror training either.”

Sharon stared at her, mouth in a hard line. “Yeah. And they all earned it.” Pushing herself back from the table, she stood up and said, “I think I’m gonna go catch up with Steve. I’ll see you later, Fitz. Don’t forget to actually learn what spells we’re doing tomorrow. I will not hesitate to destroy you again.”

“Duly noted,” he said with a chuckle. “Tell Steve I said hi.”

As Sharon left the library, Skye looked awkwardly between Fitz and Jemma. “So, how long have she and Steve been dating?”

Fitz thought for a minute. “Since last year at least. I remember she was furious when Ward was named Head Boy over Steve; she thought that Coulson didn’t fight hard enough for Steve. She actually yelled at him. I thought he was going to take her prefect badge away.”

Jemma slammed her book shut loudly. “I can’t believe she would imply that you weren’t good at Defense Against the Dark Arts! You’re a much better student than she is!”

He looked at her carefully; her cheeks were flushed and her light brown eyes were flashing with anger. “Well, she really was just referring to a specific incident.”

“You’re very brilliant, Fitz. At Defense Against the Dark Arts and everything else. I’ve seen her work in Potions and it’s really quite horrible, I don’t know how she’s ever going to become an Auror with that kind of effort.”

Fitz frowned. “Look, she really saved my arse last week. I couldn’t even remember what we were doing in Defense Against the Dark Arts and she let me hex her on purpose in front of May so that I would look good.”

Jemma shrunk back against her seat. “That’s not like you at all.”

He licked his lips and avoided her gaze. “It was a bad day. I even had to make up a Transfiguration project for Banner.”

Both girls starred at him with shock clear on their faces. “ _You_ had to make up a Transfiguration assignment?” Skye said. She looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. “Banner _allows_ people to make up Transfiguration assignments? When was this policy enacted, because I can think of at least twenty of mine that could use a redo?”

Swallowing hard, Jemma whispered, “Which…which one did you have trouble with?”

His face burned with embarrassment. “The stupid bunny/handbag one.”

“Fitz, I’ve seen your work before,” she admonished. “You could do that spell unconscious.”

“Well, I couldn’t that day.”

He could see her doing the math in her head; she knew what days he had Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts, knew when the Gryffindors tended to have practical lessons in relation to the Ravenclaws. She hung her head sadly and he barely heard her as she said, “I’m sorry.”

His heart beat loudly in his chest. It felt like it had expanded to twice its usual size, pushing his lungs out of the way and making it hard to breathe. Fitz curled his hand around hers, squeezing affectionately. “It’s okay. It’s over with, I went to him during his office hours and did it and it turned out perfectly. No harm done, really.”

Skye caught his eye from across the table and gave him a look, but Fitz was able to ignore her as Jemma smiled at him. “Of course you did,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the back of his knuckles. “You’re always so good.”

Suddenly, Skye let out a loud yawn and slammed a hand over her mouth. “God, I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. “I was up so late last night trying to get my stupid star chart right after Astronomy.”

“Why don’t you go off to bed then?” Jemma suggested warmly. “You really understand far more about this potion than you think you do. I think it’s safe to call it a night. I have to leave for my Astronomy class soon anyway.”

Skye let her book close with a thump. “Well, if you say so. I’m pretty sure someone in the Hufflepuff common room mentioned cookies tonight, and I am not a girl to pass up a bedtime snack.” Standing up and stretching her arms over her head, she said, “I’ll leave you two to whatever you guys are going to do and see you tomorrow.”

When Jemma started packing her books and parchment, Fitz did the same. “Heading to Astronomy?”

“I probably should, it’s such a far walk.” She started at them, biting her bottom lip hesitantly. “Would you…would you mind walking me?”

“Not at all. I’d be happy to.” The smile she gave him was so large and pleased that he couldn’t be the least bit upset at having to walk to the complete other side of the castle of where he needed to be.

After they had cleared the table off, he followed her out of the hallway, hand resting familiarly on the small of her back. She stuck closely to his side as they struck out towards the Astronomy tower; his shoulder tingled every time hers brushed up against it. As nice as it was just to be in her presence without feeling like an argument was about to break out, he couldn’t help feeling like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to talk to her about. There had been times when they could hardly breathe for talking, but now it seemed more and more often that when they were together it was Skye who had to be the unofficial conversation starter.

Fitz wanted to believe it was just his cautious nature, that he didn’t want to say anything to start a fight. ‘What were you up to during that time when we weren’t friends’ wasn’t exactly the way to do that. But if he was being honest, he had to reflect on the idea that Skye was right: there was too much going unspoken between them to really find anything to say.

He was so lost in his mind that he didn’t notice Jemma looking at him, trying to get his attention. “Sorry,” he muttered underneath his breath. “Did you say something?”

“No,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Just noticing that you’re being very…thoughtful, I guess, tonight. Want to share what’s on your mind?”

There were so many ways he could answer that question. Yes, he did, he wanted to talk to her about everything that had happened and everything that had been on his mind since basically the day he had met her five years ago and decided she had to be his best friend forever. At the same time, he desperately wanted to avoid this line of conversation while they were still so fragile with each other. It could easily spiral to a bad place again and he wasn’t sure he could handle that twice. “Just thinking about what N.E.W.T. classes I might want to take,” he said, swallowing all of his thoughts about possibly being brave.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh? Make any decisions?”

“Banner said I didn’t have any choice about taking Transfiguration.” That was at least the truth. “And I figure Garrett will take me for Potions even if I don’t get the requisite Outstanding.”

“Of course you’ll get it,” she assured him, but frowned. “But why would you want to take Potions? Did you want to do something involving Potions after you graduate?”

“I’m not sure yet. I just know that you’re going to take Potions.”

She flushed happily. “Oh yeah? What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you.”

Leaning into him, Jemma reached down and threaded her fingers through his. “And I know you,” she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. “And I know that’s not what you were thinking about.”

Fitz was silent for a long time. He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him, if anything at all. Honesty, surely, but did she know that she wanted that? Surely dumping all of his complex and unsettled thoughts about the state and nature of their relationship right before she was supposed to go to Astronomy was not considered a positive thing to do in any friendship.

It was Jemma who ended up speaking first. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry again. For how I acted last week. I was really awful to you and you didn’t deserve it.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“No, but I do.” Her voice wavered and he wondered if she was going to cry. He didn’t think he could handle her crying again. “I acted illogically and emotionally and based off of information that didn’t even actually exist and I almost ruined our friendship because of it. I’m just so sorry.” She didn’t say anything for a beat. “I was just so worried that you didn’t want me around anymore.”

They were almost to the Astronomy Tower at that point, but Fitz stopped them and pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I always want you around. Okay? You never have to worry about that.”

She nodded against his shoulder, clinging to him. “Thank you.” Fitz rested his chin on top of her head, rubbing her back in small circles. Eventually, Jemma took a deep breath and stepped back out of his embrace. “I should probably go upstairs or Professor Foster is going to wonder where I am.”

“Right.” He couldn’t help but feel like an essential moment was passing him by, but it wasn’t like he could say ‘I in love with you, have a good astronomy class’ and walk away. Smiling fondly, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed, but continued to linger at the stairs to the tower. “Thank you,” she said again, suddenly. “For forgiving me.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m always going to forgive you.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded before starting to head up the stairs. A lump grew in Fitz’s throat as he stared at her retreating back and before he even understood what he was doing, he called out, “Jemma, wait!”

She turned around immediately, eyes wide as she stared at him eagerly. “Yes?”

His mouth was incredibly dry; he coughed a few times as he stared at her, taking in all the expectation written on her face. “I…I’m sorry. Never mind. You should go to class.”

“Oh, alright.” The disappointment on her face hurt even worse than the expectation, but she quickly tried to cover it up with a smile. “Good night, Fitz.”

Other Ravenclaw fifth years were starting to come through the hall on their way to the Astronomy Tower now and he realized that they probably had had a few more minutes to stare at each other uselessly before she would have been late. What was the point though? He didn’t want to just awkwardly babble at her, waiting for the right moment to almost say something. He didn’t want to wonder if she might want to say something to him and try to figure out what that thing might be and if she was even going to say it. Everything was too complicated.

It had felt so nice to hug her. He had missed just being next to her. Jemma had such a warm presence. Being able to spend so much time with her for the past five years, he’d taken it for granted. Not being with her had sort of felt like a battery unable to find a charge. Having Jemma back, talking to him, smiling at him, even just sitting next to him; knowing she was there brightened up his life in unspeakable ways. Whatever Skye might think about it now, Jemma’s friendship was the most perfect thing in his life. Maybe it wasn’t as perfect as it had been before, but he had to hope it was going to get there again. He had decided a long time ago that their friendship wasn’t worth risking over his feelings.

Shoulders slumped with exhaustion, he started the long walk back to Gryffindor Tower. Sometimes he would watch Steve and Sharon together and he wondered if he and Jemma could be like them and the thoughts would pass; sometimes, the idea would ache in his chest for hours because he knew they would be so much better because she understood every part of him and he knew her in ways that he didn’t think it was possible to know another human being before he met her. When he and Jemma were connecting, he was fairly certain they could defy the laws of magic. And if he could kiss her and hold her and tell her everything that she meant to him, it could be…

It would be nothing because those feelings had already messed things up enough. Their friendship was not inherently worth less than any romantic feelings that he had—just because he loved her, that was not more important than wanting to be friends with her and he had to keep reminding himself of that. The mistakes he’d made from being in love with her had almost cost him her very presence in his life and that was not worth the minute possibility of anything else.

When he got to Gryffindor Tower, Steve and Sharon were sitting on one of the couches in front of the fire. At least, Steve was sitting—Sharon was sprawled out across the couch with her head in Steve’s lap and he was stroking her hair. “Hey,” Steve said quietly. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good.” Fitz nodded at Sharon. “She asleep?”

“She’s ‘just resting her eyes,’” Steve said, rolling his own. “Just a few minutes while I please, pretty please look over her Charms paper. That was almost an hour ago.” He smiled at Fitz. “It’s a good paper at least, she’ll be happy.”

Fitz chuckled. “Glad her paper is good, I used some of her notes. You want to look at mine next?”

“I would, but I’m not dating you.” Steve winked at him, then regarded him carefully. “You okay? You look…I dunno.”

Fitz had always appreciated Steve’s caring nature, but today did not appreciate his sense of perception. “Just tired. Probably going to head up to bed and maybe read until I fall asleep.”

On the couch, Sharon stirred, rolling on to her back. When she blinked sleepily, Steve picked up her hand and kissed it. “Shhh, go back to sleep, your paper is fine.” Sharon just mumbled, then fell right back into unconsciousness. Fitz felt it like a knife to the stomach but Steve just smiled. “She’s been working herself to death, poor thing,” he said, shaking his head at Fitz. “I remember O.W.L. year, teachers act like it’s pass or the end of the world.”

“Professor Selvig pretty much thinks everything is the end of the world,” Fitz said, trying to ignore the way it felt like his lungs weren’t getting any air. “His theories are probably more accurate than Blake’s and he doesn’t even teach Divination.”

Laughing, Steve said, “Ain’t that the truth. But I’m sure you’re set in Transfiguration and you’re good in Potions again now.”

Fitz suddenly could no longer feel the warmth from the fire. “What do you mean ‘again now?’”

“Um…well, I mean, you’re good at Potions yourself. You’re good at everything. When Coulson told us who he was picking for the new prefects, he said you were the smartest guy in the entire fifth year, if not in the school and ever since you started tutoring us in Transfiguration, I totally see it.” When Fitz said nothing and continued to stare, Steve sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Sharon worries okay? About you, specifically. Sometimes it’s Sam, sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s Trip—it’s Trip a lot because she can’t watch him like the rest of us because he abandoned the family by being put in Ravenclaw—but since you guys got made prefects together, you got put on the worry list too. And she got really concerned since you broke up with your girlfriend—Simmons, right, Potions genius?—but you two are back together so she can do slightly less worrying.”

He was alternating between touched that they all cared and then exhausted because he called Jemma his girlfriend. “I…yeah, she’s not my girlfriend, but really, Sharon doesn’t have to worry about me.”

Steve shrugged. “Have you ever tried telling Sharon to do something? Or worse, tried telling her not to do something? You’d have an easier conversation with the Giant Squid.” He stroked Sharon’s hair affectionately.

“Yeah. Yeah, sounds about right.” Faking a yawn, Fitz stretched his arms over his head. “Well, I’m gonna head upstairs. If Sharon ever lets you up, tell her I said good night.”

“Will do.” His blue eyes watched Fitz’s face closely. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m good,” he said quickly. He was already heading for the stairs to the dormitory. “Good night.”

A few of his bunkmates were already in bed, asleep, so Fitz changed quickly and got into his bed, drawing the curtains. He hugged his pillow to his chest, taking deep breaths. His stomach hurt; he could barely breathe. He suddenly remembered all those times as a child when he was try to fake sick so that he could stay home from school because the work had been so boring and all the kids had been so mean to him. His mother had called him a liar and a hypochondriac, but she’d still indulged him and made him soup and tried to think of ways to make it better for him.

He wasn’t faking anymore, but he still felt like the biggest liar in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

At the end of the week, Fitz and Sharon left the Great Hall after breakfast, discussing the merits of each of the History of Magic essays they had completed last night. “Look,” Fitz said, “I’m just saying that I think the emphasis of the essay called for everything after 1460. I just don’t think Selvig cared about everything leading up to the Ghostly Rising, just the event itself.”

“You just _want_ everything before 1460 not to be important because you didn’t include any of it,” Sharon said, smirking. “But I think historical context is important and I think Selvig will too.”

The sound of a throat clearing behind them disturbed whatever he was about to say and they turned around to see Jemma standing behind them. “Sorry to interrupt, Fitz. Good morning, Sharon,” she said sweetly. “How are you?”

After a beat, Sharon simply nodded. “I’m good. Glad this week is almost over.” She hesitated another second before pulling a pair of gloves out of her bag. “You know what, I’m going to go ahead to Herbology. I’ll see you there, Fitz. Later, Simmons.”

“I hope she’s not mad at me for being so rude to her the other day,” Jemma said, but moved into the space next to Fitz that Sharon had previously occupied.

“Nah, don’t think so.” He actually didn’t know, but it was worth hoping for. “What’s up?”

She looked at the marble floor, hair falling into her face. “You know, it’s really not that important if you want to go catch up with her.”

“No, hey.” He put his hands on her shoulders, bending over to try and catch her gaze. Anything she had to say was important to him. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

Looking up at him quickly, she shook her head assuredly. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. I was just hoping…well, it’s supposed to be really lovely out today. It’s supposed to snow for the rest of the day, but not get too cold, but I know you like the cold anyway, so I was thinking that we could use our free period today to get some hot chocolate or some cider or just tea and maybe take a walk? Unless you’ve got some homework to do? I know that we’ve all been stressed about the end of the term and I think it could just do us both some good to get outside and enjoy the nice weather.”

Fitz liked the mental image of Jemma covered in snow flurries, imagined making a snow angel with her by the bank of the lake. It seemed like this was not an invitation that was going to be extended to anyone else, which was just fine with him. But a detail was standing out to him. “What, is it snowing now?”

“It’s been snowing since last night,” she said, frowning. “Did you not realize?”

“Guess not.” Usually one of the other boys in his dorm mentioned it, as his bed was farthest from the windows, but they’d all been a little distracted by the History of Magic essay. It did explain Sharon’s gloves and cloak at least. “Bloody hell, I’ve got to go out to Herbology.” There was no way he’d be able to get to Gryffindor Tower and out to the greenhouse without being late.

“Without anything on? You’ll freeze!” Jemma admonished. Shaking her head at him, she put her bag on the ground and dug around until she pulled out a long scarf his mother had given her for Christmas last year. “Here,” she said softly, standing close to him as she wrapped it slowly around his neck, making sure it was secure.

Fitz swallowed hard, looking down at her face. She seemed to be concentrating intensely. “I don’t want you to be cold.”

She looked up quickly to meet his gaze and smiled. “I don’t have to leave the castle today if I don’t want to. You’re more important.” She laid the ends of the scarf against his chest and placed her hand tenderly over his heart. “There. I don’t have any gloves for you, unfortunately, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about frostbite on your way there. Maybe you can wear your Herbology gloves if you think it’ll be too cold?”

It wasn’t something he was overly concerned about; he suddenly felt warm all over. “Thanks. I’ll make sure to go up and grab my things before we go on that walk.”

The smile she gave him was as bright as the sun; it probably could have melted all the snow in Britain. “I’m so glad. Go now, before you’re late.”

The very idea of leaving the warm castle, not to mention her, to go out into the snow to go to Herbology was depressing. But he smiled at her anyway. “Yeah, alright. I’ll see you la—”

“Mr. Fitz,” Professor Hill called to him, walking down the stairs towards him. Fitz noticed that she tended to go everywhere as if the destination was of upmost importance; the staircases at Hogwarts did as Maria Hill commanded. “I need you to come with me right now.”

Fitz swallowed hard. “I was just on my way to Herbology, ma’am,” he said and instantly winced. Jemma stared at him and elbowed him hard and he knew what she meant: as if that would possibly matter to the Deputy Headmistress. He kicked himself for questioning her. He was going to get detention.

Hill raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, as impressed as I am that you want to walk in the snow in just that, Headmaster Fury wants to see you in his office immediately.”

His heart sank into his stomach. He’d never been called into Fury’s office before. Even when he’d been made prefect, that had all been done through Coulson. He felt like he was going to pass out in the entrance hall. “Right. Of course. I’ll be right there.” He looked at Jemma and lowered his voice, “D-do you want your scarf back?”

“What?” she hissed. “No, of course not! I’ll get it later. Fitz, what have you done?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, hoping his complete terror didn’t show on his face. Professor Hill cleared her throat from the staircase and he jumped. “See you during free period?”

She nodded, then grabbed his hand and squeezed it comfortingly. “I’ll meet you right here. Good luck.”

He smiled his thanks before heading up the stairs behind Hill, who, as was her nature, decided to take them two at a time. He rushed to catch up, almost running to match her quick pace. Fitz knew where the Headmaster’s office was, of course, but in all his time at Hogwarts he had never had a reason to actually go there. It hadn’t actually been a goal to graduate without having a reason to, and yet he still felt rather disappointed in himself.

Hill whispered the password to the gargoyle guarding the entranceway to the Headmaster’s office, then led him up the spiral staircase. The office was larger than he thought it would be, all shiny metal and glass. The center of the room contained a modern meeting area with a large desk and multiple plush chairs set up by a wide window. Even from the door he was able to see over most of the grounds. There were four doors on opposite sides of the room painted in the house colors; none of them had handles and he had a sneaking suspicion that Headmaster Fury was the only one who would ever be able to open them.

In addition to the Headmaster, who was sitting at this desk, Professors Coulson and Banner were in chairs opposite him. The lump in Fitz’s throat got bigger. If he was going to get expelled or something, of course they would call his Head of House in, but why Banner? Was this about the stupid rabbit he couldn’t transfigure?

Coulson rose from his seat and came to put a comforting hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Fitz,” he said with a smile. “You’re not in trouble.” He gave a disapproving look over the top of Fitz’s head at Hill, who matched him glare for glare.

“I didn’t tell him he was in trouble,” she said lightly.

“Well, you could have told him he wasn’t in trouble.”

“My job was to fetch, Phil, not be an introductory committee.”

Headmaster Fury cleared his throat. “Why don’t you take a seat, Fitz,” he said, indicating the middle chair right in front of him.

Fitz did as he was told, sitting meekly at the edge of the leather. “Good morning, Headmaster, Professor Banner.” He took a deep breath and was both surprised and relaxed by the immediate smell of Jemma’s shampoo. He reached down to grab the end of the scarf that was still around his neck, holding on for dear life.

“We’re sorry to pull you out of class for this, Fitz, but this was a bit of a time sensitive matter and we wanted to address it as soon as possible,” Coulson said. “Don’t worry about your Herbology lecture, we’ll talk to Professor Weaver on your behalf and we’re sure you won’t have a problem making up whatever you’ve missed.”

Banner looked at him for a second, as if considering how to broach the subject they were there to talk to him about. “Fitz, do you remember when we talked about your Transfiguration work?” Fitz nodded; okay, yeah, they were there to talk about Transfiguration, made sense that Banner was there. “And I said I would be contacting my friend Tony Stark for you? Did you ever hear from him?”

Fitz sat up straight in his seat. “Oh! Oh, yeah, yeah, I did!” Looking through his bag quickly, Fitz found the envelope pressed very carefully in his Transfiguration book. He liked to keep it with him at all times, just to be safe. He gave it to Professor Banner, who read each letter quickly before handing them over to Fury, who did the same before passing it to Coulson.

“Mr. Fitz,” Fury said slowly, “did you reply to this letter?”

“I, um, yeah.” Fitz swallowed hard. He could feel the color leaving his face. Had he gotten scammed? What had he done wrong? “I just said that it was amazing to hear from him and that I really respected Professor Banner and that I didn’t think there was going to be another Hogsmeade trip because we were so close to end of term, but that they would resume after the break. That’s all, sir.” When none of the professors said anything right away, he sighed. “Should I not have done that?”

Banner removed his glasses, cleaning them with a small cloth. “This isn’t your fault, Fitz. Tony should have known that contacting students—”

“Contacting minors!” Hill interjected

“Yes, Maria, contacting minors, it was poor form. He should have worked through me if he wanted to meet with you.” Banner sighed, tapping his fingers against his knee. “I believe I told him that your only guardian was Muggleborn, so I doubt he bothered asking your mother for permission. He doesn’t like it when people don’t know him.”

Fitz shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything, but we don’t keep an owl at home. Our house isn’t zoned for it. She only sends me letters when my wizarding grandparents talk to her, though that’s fairly often when I’m at school. Says it makes her feel included when she can keep up with wizarding news.”

Clearing her throat loudly, Hill said, “Mr. Fitz, while we do want to make it clear that you are not in trouble, I also think it’s important to mention that if, at any point in the future, you get unsolicited mail from any adult that you’re not related to or otherwise extremely familiar with who wants to meet you outside of Hogwarts grounds for any reason, please alert your Head of Household. That’s a security risk and we take matters like this very seriously.”

Bowing his head, Fitz avoided looking at Coulson. “Yes, ma’am. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“It’s understandable that Fitz would just be excited to receive mail from someone he personally admired,” Coulson said, patting Fitz’s back. Behind them, Hill snorted disparagingly.

Leaning close to Fitz, Banner whispered, “Don’t take it personally. Professor Hill was also in the same year as Tony and I. They, uh, never really got along.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Hill said, and Fitz wondered, not for the first time, if she had put a hearing charm on every square inch of the castle. Trying to think back at how Tony Stark and Professor Hill would have been at Hogwarts, it sort of made sense to him that they would hate each other.

Folding his hands on top of his desk, Headmaster Fury looked at him carefully. “Now that we’ve got this sorted out, we have to address the letter I got today.” He held up an envelope that was identical to the one that Fitz had received. “It seems that Mr. Stark was not exaggerating his intent to see you. He wants to come in a week from today and have a meeting.” When Fitz sat straight up in his chair, blue eyes wide with excitement, the headmaster smiled. “I assume that would be alright with you?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes, sir, absolutely. That would be fantastic.”

Fury chuckled. “Coulson said that would likely be your reaction. Felt it would be best to talk to you before we made a decision about whether to allow it.”

Logically, he should have known that they weren’t just going to let him have a meeting with a business tycoon in the castle just because he and Tony Stark wanted it. There were probably things to work out, rules to follow. It didn’t stop his enthusiasm from waning; it felt a bit like his expectations had been crushed by the Whomping Willow. “I understand, sir. I’m sure there’s a lot of details to consider.”

Coulson stretched his legs out in front of him. “Well, some people think there are more issues than others.” He didn’t attempt to hide whom he was speaking about as he looked back at Hill.

“I don’t want to get into this with you again, Phil,” she said with a sigh. “Not in front of a student.”

“You know, I respectfully disagree with you there,” Banner said diplomatically. “I think if we’re going to debate whether or not Fitz should be able to participate in something that’s going to greatly affect his life and his future, he should be able to hear the arguments.” He glanced over at Headmaster Fury, who simply looked back with interest. “I think we can all agree that Fitz is smart enough to be able to judge the pros and cons if presented with them.”

At Fury’s assenting nod, Hill glared at her coworkers. “Fine. Next week is the last week before exams. Students should be focusing on writing their final papers, on study groups, on exam preparation. Not on a visiting billionaire.”

“You can’t possibly believe that will be a problem for Fitz,” Coulson said. “I know he’s never performed less than optimally in your class.”

Wringing his hands in his lap, he said, “I promise, Professor Hill, I won’t let this affect my exam grades.”

The smile she gave him was unduly kind. “I don’t doubt that, Mr. Fitz. I think it goes without saying that I think you are an exceptionally bright young man. And while this is not the opportunity I would personally select for you, I do not begrudge you of it and am extremely excited for your future. You are not, however, the only student at this school. The anticipation and arrival of Tony Stark during exam preparation week would negatively affect the student body when they’re supposed to be concentrating on their academics, not the antics of an overgrown child.”

“You’re assuming that people would find out,” Coulson said. He made a wide gesture to the room. “The only people who know about this are right in here, unless Fitz has previously told anyone about this letter. Have you?” When Fitz shook his head, Coulson smiled victoriously. “I think he knows how to keep an important secret.”

Fitz pressed his lips together. “Yeah, don’t tell Skye.”

Banner chuckled and Fitz could tell Coulson was trying not to laugh as well. “I’m saying that he know who is trustworthy in his life and who is not,” Coulson said.

Shaking her head, Hill said, “And in all of your years of working here, Phil, how many ‘important secrets’ do you recall actually remaining a secret? How much student gossip or even coworker gossip have you heard that you knew you shouldn’t have?”

Coulson just stared at her for a beat. Eventually, Banner sighed. “She has a point, I think, Phil.”

“And that’s not even the biggest problem,” Hill continued. “The biggest problem is when Stark actually gets here. He makes everything he does a spectacle. He’d make buying milk a press event if he didn’t have people to get it for him.”

“Hey,” Banner said. “That’s not fair.”

“You know how he is, Bruce.” Watching them go back and forth was like watching a Quidditch match and Fitz really hated Quidditch. “Stark is going to come in here in the middle of a school day—whether he comes at his appointed meeting time or at whatever time is good for him because you never know with him—and he’s going to bring his pyrotechnics and whatever new toy he’s working on and he’s going to disrupt classes and students who are trying to study and he’s going to want to hand out pictures and autographs and it’s going to be The Tony Stark Show because it always is when he’s around when it should be a school full of children trying to get an education.”

Fitz tried to sink down in his chair, feeling small and hopeless. Coulson and Banner shared a look over his head before Banner said, “I can try to talk to him. Tell him that we are getting ready for exams and he’ll have to cool it. He knows when to keep it in check.”

She laughed. “That’s bullshit, and you know it, Bruce.”

“You’re out of line—”

“Must I remind you of your thirty-fifth birthday?”

Banner pressed his lips together so hard they practically turned white. “Point taken.”

“I think she’s right,” Fitz said suddenly. All four of the administrators looked at him, but he avoided any of their eyes. “I don’t know him personally or anything but…I know if Tony Stark were here to see anyone else, I’d want to get a picture or an autograph or something. It would definitely distract me.” He held tightly to Jemma’ scarf, breathing her in deeply. “It wouldn’t be right to maybe distract someone from their studies just so I can talk to him for a few minutes. If it’s not allowed for me to meet him in Hogsmeade the next weekend we can go there, I can… Well, my father’s parents are wizards, they could maybe take me to his offices over the holiday or next summer if that’s not possible. They always make sure I get to Diagon Alley.” He looked up at Headmaster Fury and smiled as best he possibly could. “Really, I’ll find some way to work it out.”

The frustration on Coulson’s face was clear as he glared at the floor, and Fitz was touched at how much his Head of House wanted this for him. “What if Banner or I took Fitz to Hogsmeade that Friday to meet with Stark? It would be supervised at least.”

“I would say yes if it were anyone else,” Fury said. “But Hill’s right about Stark’s notorious lack of punctuality. It was an issue even when he was a student. The two of you could be there all day and you’ve got classes to teach. It’s one thing to miss a class while you’re still here on campus, it’s another to sit in the Three Broomsticks all day waiting for someone to show up.”

“What if we locked down the campus,” Hill said thoughtfully.

Fury raised an eyebrow at her. “Now you just want to keep him out completely?”

“It’s been a dream of mine, but that’s not what I’m saying. We lock down the campus—students don’t go off campus anyway, so they won’t know and we’ll alert the staff, of course—so that the only way Stark can enter is through Floo. And the only Floo channel we’ll have open is the one that leads right here into this office.”

Coulson nodded. “He comes in through Floo into here, they have their meeting here where it’s locked down, and he goes out through the same Floo channel.”

Smirking, she said, “Exactly. Containment is essentially the only way to deal with Stark, as far as I’m concerned. Even if the students do find out that he’s coming, if he’s not traipsing through the castle, I think that could cut down on about 70% of his negative impact.”

“Do you think he’ll agree to that?” Fury asked Banner.

“I think if you send him the affirmative response, we’ll just make sure he realizes he doesn’t have another option,” he said. “And I will speak to him in the meantime about the proper and improper way of associating with my students and why certain precautions are necessary.”

“Alright then.” Fury picked his quill up from his desk and dipped it into his inkwell before looking at Fitz. “Looks like you got your meeting.”

Knowing that it would be wholly inappropriate to hug the headmaster, Fitz just stood up eagerly, offering him his hand. “Thank you so much, sir. Really. I appreciate all the trouble.”

A pleased Fury shook his hand. “Well, your professors here seem to think you’re a student worth making the effort for and from what they say, I have to agree. If anything else comes up, I’ll pass the information on through Professor Coulson. You should go get prepared for your next class.”

“I’ll do that, sir. Thank you again.” He looked at his professors, smiling gratefully at them. “Thank you all. I’m very excited.”

Banner patted him on the back. “I’ll see you in class later, Fitz. And let’s try not to spread this around too much, okay? If we can keep the entire school from knowing, all the better.”

“Understood. Thank you again.” He nodded to them and headed down the spiral staircase of the Headmaster’s office.

He was halfway down when he heard Hill clear her throat. “Mr. Fitz,” she said to him, amusement clear in her tone. “If you’re planning on heading outside at all today…stay warm. Wouldn’t do for you to get sick before next week.”

Running his hand over Jemma’s scarf, he smiled at her. “Yes, Professor Hill. And…thank you. I really mean it, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, but her face was soft with fondness. “If any of our students deserve this, it’s you. Even if it is _him_.” She smiled wryly. “I wish you all the luck in the world, Mr. Fitz. Now go on, get to class.”

As she closed the door to the office behind her, Fitz felt something akin to pride settle in his chest. Suddenly, he felt stronger than he had in days, weeks even. Setting off for the rest of the castle, he started to think over some decisions that had to be made. 


	10. Chapter 10

There was still time before he had to be in his next class and Fitz headed to Gryffindor Tower in a daze. He was actually going to get to meet Tony Stark. Tony Stark was coming to Hogwarts just to meet him. Somewhat more importantly, everyone was going out of their way to make it happen. As he traded his chucks for more appropriate boots, Fitz wondered what he could do for Coulson to thank him for being so supportive. It seemed above and beyond normal Head of Household duties to fight for him so hard.

More than anything, he was excited to tell Jemma. He tried to imagine her face: her smile, the way her brown eyes would light up, the rosiness of her cheeks. How soft her hair always was. The scarf still smelled of her honeysuckle shampoo; he knew he should probably put his own scarf on, but he just packed it up with some gloves and a hat as he put on his cloak.

As expected, Jemma was waiting for him in the front hall when he arrived to meet her later that day. She stared at him anxiously, holding a steaming cup of cocoa in each hand. “What happened earlier?” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Why did you have to go see Fury?”

Dozens of students wandered past them; it was not a great place for a discreet conversation. “It’s not that important,” he said, trying to keep it casual.

“That is not an acceptable answer, Leo Fitz!” She glared at him, eyebrows narrowed in frustration. “I have been beside myself with worry all day. We are not going anywhere until you tell me.”

Fitz knew that if he just said it was a private matter that she would let it go eventually; she wasn’t one to pry into business that wasn’t hers. But he felt like he had to tell her something. “It was about Transfiguration.”

“Transfiguration?”

“Fury had heard about my extra Transfiguration work and was concerned that I was overworking myself, especially it being O.W.L.s year. Especially after my poor showing in most of my classes last week.” It sounded like a good enough excuse for now and the Transfiguration part was at least true.

Her face fell as she cast her eyes down to the floor. “Oh. So you got called into Fury’s office because of me.”

Maybe not a good excuse. “No, no, it was not your fault,” he said hurriedly, desperate to console her. “I think a few professors were just concerned and didn’t want to have to say that they were listening to student gossip. But Coulson and Banner were there and they said that being able to do this Transfiguration work hasn’t been affecting any of my other coursework and that Coulson sees to that and they’ll continue to keep an eye on me and Fury agreed to it. Really, no harm done.”

She tilted her head to the side, watching him closely before saying, “Alright. Well, I’m glad it all worked out. That’s so odd that they pulled you out of class for that.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “The Headmaster’s a busy guy. It was probably the only time that they could all meet together.” Smiling at her, he indicated the hot chocolates she was carrying. “Is one of those for me?”

“Depends,” she said innocently. “Are you going to give me my scarf back?”

He really didn’t want to. It felt nice to have something of hers and it did smell so good. Pulling his gloves and scarf out, he said, “I’ve grown kind of attached to it, actually. So, I was thinking, maybe you’d want to wear mine instead?”

The tips of her ears turned red, but her eyes shone as she nodded. “I could agree to that, yeah.”  Because her hands were full from the drinks, he wound it around her neck the same way she had done to him earlier, careful not to jostle her. He pulled her hair out from inside the scarf, letting it settle gently behind her neck.

Standing back, he regarded her carefully. “It looks good on you.”

She blushed, then waited for him to put his gloves and hat on before handing him his drink. “Shall we?”

Jemma had been right about it being perfect weather. Several inches of snow blanketed the grounds, and even more was falling lightly from the sky. Overhead, the sun was shining and there was just the slightest bit of breeze. The lake had frozen over and other than the tracks leading to and from the Herbology greenhouses, the snow drifts were undisturbed.

Snowflakes fell on her eyelashes and gathered on top of her knitted blue cap as she told him of an epic Wizard’s chess tournament that had suddenly broken out over the weekend and ended with fights and crying and Professor Foster having to separate large sections of Ravenclaw upperclassmen into different parts of the Tower. The story was humorous, but Fitz was mostly enjoying watching her speak animatedly, the way her eyes lit up, and how quickly she talked when she was excited about something.

When she noticed his continued stare, she trailed off, giggling. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t think anyone in Gryffindor has ever thrown a punch over chess; I like to hear how it might have been if I had been in Ravenclaw.”

Jemma linked her arm with his and took a long sip of her cocoa. “You don’t feel that unhappy in Gryffindor, do you?”

“It’s gotten better, actually. Sharon’s cool and sometimes I’ll hang out with her and Steve and Sam. We’ll just talk or play exploding snap or something.” He smiled encouragingly at her. “The guys have even got me helping them with their Transfiguration for their N.E.W.T.s because Sharon told them I was pretty good.”

“You’re not pretty good, you’re amazing,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I am glad someone over there is realizing that, truly.”

He grinned. She had no idea. “Yeah, well, about that…”

Jemma eyed him curiously; a few snowflakes fell on her nose and she wrinkled it to get them to fall away. “Yes?” she prompted when he didn’t say anything for a minute. “Are you getting some sort of Transfiguration award or something?”

The words were stuck in his head—he couldn’t even get them to his throat or the tip of his tongue. It should have been so easy to tell her about Tony Stark now that they were alone, but he wasn’t sure how to put it together. He knew that she would be happy for him; there was no doubt in his mind about that. Jemma was the only one he knew who would truly know what this meant to him.

He could imagine her face lighting up, could see the pride in her features as she would congratulate him on his success. She would hug him and they would whisper about it as their own private secret for the next week, but the images that flew through his head left him emotionally bereft. After the time they had spent apart, it didn’t feel right. He could try to deny that and tell himself that it was supposed to be a secret and he shouldn’t even tell Jemma, but Fitz knew that wasn’t the truth. Telling her this now made him think of the pain and hopelessness he felt when he got the first letter from Stark, how lost he felt without her; it made him think of all the other things he had never told her and how lost he still continued to feel about their relationship.

It was at that moment that Fitz made a decision and he took a deep breath. He had to stop fumbling around her, worrying whether telling her how he felt about her was going to ruin them. Not telling her had already almost done that. If she didn’t feel the same way or didn’t want to date him, then she at least deserved honesty about why he was acting the way he had been acting. Or maybe it was selfish to just tell someone you loved them, even if you were maybe a little bit sure hopefully (if Skye was right, Skye was right sometimes, wasn’t she?) that they liked you back.

“Fitz?” She waved her cocoa in front of his face to get his attention. “What’s going on?”

He looked at her closely. She was so beautiful. It was like he couldn’t stop ever part of his body from going completely numb or being on fire when he was with her sometimes. If there was even a chance that she could feel the same way about him, he was going to have to try. For once, he was going to have to be brave.

When Jemma raised her eyebrows at him questioningly, he shook his head. “You know,” he said slowly, “it’s actually not a big deal. I’ll tell you about it later.” She looked thoroughly unconvinced, but he just leaned his head on top of hers, partially to feel her next to him and partially so that he could avoid her gaze. “Tell me more about what’s going on with you.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She made a thoughtful noise. “During Astronomy the other night, Professor Foster said that we should start thinking about our N.E.W.T. subjects over break because we’d be having those meetings when we come back.”

“So soon?”

“Well, we’re Ravenclaws.”

Finishing the last of his hot chocolate, Fitz said, “Knowing you, I assume you’ve already giving it lots of thought. You chose your N.E.W.T. subjects back in second year, didn’t you?”

She laughed. “I’ve always had a few things in mind, yes. But I’ve sort of been rethinking things lately.”

Fitz looked at her in surprise. “Do you no longer want to be a healer like your mum?”

“I certainly think I’d enjoy a lot of aspects of healing,” Jemma said. She pressed her lips together, then sighed. “Obviously I’ve gone to work with my mum, I’ve seen what she does. But I feel like—and I don’t mean to sound full of myself or disparage the work my mum does—but I think I could do more than that.”

“I think you can do whatever you want.” He gently kicked into a drift of snow, sending flurries scattering around them. “I mean, you’re a genius, you could be Minister of Magic if that’s what you wanted.”

She smiled warmly at him. “Thank you. I just…maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know everything about it, but when I think about healing, I think about how…routine it would all be. I mean, yes, there’s an investigative aspect, trying to figure out what’s wrong with patients, but the majority of time you’re applying known cures to known diseases and sending people on their way, which is a great skill, of course, needed and worthwhile and—”

“And you’d be bored within a week.” Fitz grinned at her as she blushed and ducked her head. “You would be. Sure, you’d probably enjoy research if you got a particularly exotic disease, but then you’d have all those memorized in the second week and it would all get tedious and repetitive. You can’t even get through fifth year Potions without making new things.”

“Says the transfiguration prodigy!” She squeezed his arm. “But you’re right, I think. And Garrett was talking to me, talking about how my tweaks to the shrinking potion could be used, maybe even in a healing capacity and I just couldn’t help thinking about all those diseases and afflictions that don’t have cures or even potions to make it livable!” Biting her bottom lip excitedly, she said, “Fitz, imagine if I was the one who cured lycanthropy.”

Feeling emboldened by her enthusiasm, he reached out and brushed a few locks of hair from in front of her face. “Frankly, I can’t think of anyone else who could.”

Jemma sighed, the glow fading a bit from her pink cheeks. “Not that I’m particularly eager to tell my parents or anything. According to Garrett, it’s frightfully difficult to find funding or lab space for healing research, especially for things as low status as lycanthropy. I know that the Ministry isn’t keen on giving grants, Mum is always complaining about that, and it’s just as hard to find private funding unless what you’re working on also has a commercial use.”

A stab of guilt hit Fitz straight in his gut as he remembered the incredibly rich man who was preparing to come meet him and maybe allow him to one day work at his incredibly wealthy company when he didn’t want to make the world as half a good a place as Jemma did. He had a feeling that altruism wasn’t a founding principle of Stark Industries. Wrapping his right arm around Jemma’s shoulders, he said, “I believe in you. If anyone can fix all the ailments of the world, you can.”

She leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. At his surprised look, she said, “You’re being very sweet today.” Then she wrapped her arm around his waist, curling up against his side.

Fitz was starting to tell her that he was now learning exactly what Qudditch was all about thanks to Sharon, Steve, and Sam—he still wasn’t sure what the point of it was, but he’d never picked up soccer in the Muggle world either so he was pretty sure that was just him. Jemma was listening attentively to his secondarily told tales of highlights from Gryffindor Quidditch practice. “Should you be telling me this?” she asked, laughing. “I’m technically the enemy.”

Raising his eyebrows at her, he said, “Yeah? Who are you going to tell?” A thought suddenly occurred to him and his stomach twisted itself into a large knot. “Triplett?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, we don’t even talk that much!” At his disbelieving look, she said, “Honestly, Fitz. What, do you think I sit next to him in every class and follow him back to the common room and we share a couch and chat all night?” It wasn’t exactly how Fitz had imagined it—he’d tried _not_ to imagine it, other than a few nightmares—but it was close enough for all intents and purposes. “The girls in my year and I are quite friendly.” Fitz remembered all the dirty looks, yeah, that made sense. “And I talk to the other prefects and, really, I would categorize my relationships with almost everyone from fourth through seventh year as at least acquaintance. Yes, Antoine and I have a lot of classes in common, but I study with you far more than I study with him, and we try to save a lot of our catching up for our rounds so we don’t get bored.” The look she gave him was bitter as she pressed her lips together. “I’d bet I talk to him a lot less than _you_ talk to _Sharon_.”

Probably true, but up until about two weeks ago, that was because Sharon was the only Gryffindor he talked to at all, other than times of absolute necessity. “Sharon never asked me out on a date.”

“I was very surprised when he did that,” she said earnestly. “I certainly wasn’t expecting it and I don’t believe I did anything to imply that I wanted him to.” Fitz wondered if she was trying to imply that she was implying to him that she wanted him to ask her out. It was confusing. He felt a bit better when she tightened her arm around him and pulled him closer, saying, “If he asked me out again, I’d say no, just like I was planning to the first time.”

He stroked her arm gently with his thumb. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I promise.” She reached around him to grab his other arm, ostensibly to look at his watch, but Fitz felt a bit like he was holding her and it was nice. “We should get back to the castle or we might be late to class.”

The entrance hall was mostly empty with people still in classes when they got inside and without the brightness of the sun in his eyes, he could see a slight blue tinge to her lips. “You were cold!” he said, angry at himself for not realizing it sooner.

She took off her hat, shaking off any remaining snow and using a small spell to dry it off before putting it in her pocket. “Not everyone is from Scotland, Fitz. I’m fine though.”

After they took off their gloves, Fitz took her hands in his, rubbing them together to get some warmth back in them. A dozen spells ran through his head that would get the job done quicker, and, logically, probably better, but he wouldn’t enjoy it as much. “Are you completely frozen?” he said, moving his hands up to the tops of her arms and rubbing from shoulder to elbow to generate some heat. Inside, with his gloves off, he could feel how cold she was. “We could have come in sooner.”

“Not completely,” she said, smiling up at him and she shivered just once. “You like it out there and I was having a good time. It’s getting better now, really.”

As chilled as she must be feeling, he couldn’t believe she withstood it for him. When she had feeling back in her limbs, she reached up and brushed snow off his shoulders, and he really noticed how closely they were standing together. It would be nothing to just lean down and kiss her. Classes wouldn’t let out for another minute or two. The way she was smiling at him, he couldn’t help but think that was what she wanted him to do.

Before he could make that decision, a full class of Herbology students suddenly filled the entrance hall. Of course Weaver would let them out early. He could only assume that it was her way of punishing him for missing her class. Jemma’s face was bright pink all of a sudden and Fitz wondered if she had been thinking the same thing he was. “I should go up to the tower and get my stuff before I’m late to class,” she said.

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Thanks for suggesting this though. I’m really glad we did it.”

“Me too.” Despite her insistence that she had to leave, she lingered in front of him. Tugging playfully on the ends of the scarf he was wearing, she said, “If you’re keeping my scarf, I’m keeping yours, you know.”

Fitz beamed at her. “I think I can agree to that deal. It still looks better on you.”

She smiled back and hesitated before she said, “That thing that you didn’t tell me, you will tell me later, won’t you?”

“I will,” he said, finding her hand in his and squeezing it. “It just…it wasn’t the time.”

That seemed to only make her more curious, but she nodded. “Okay.” Then she kissed him on the cheek again and headed towards the main staircase. “See you later, Fitz.” She paused halfway up to wave at him before disappearing from sight.

Fitz did not scream after her that he loved her, but he really, really wanted to. And in that moment, he was even more determined in his decision that she had to know exactly how he felt. 


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as Fitz spotted Skye climbing down from the Divination tower, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down the hall. “I need your help.”

“Hello to you too,” she said. “Nice to see you aren’t expelled.” At his confused look, she said, “Heard you got dragged into Fury’s office this morning. What was that about?”

He shook his head quickly. “Yeah, it was nothing.”

“Nothing my ass, you didn’t go up there for tea.” She narrowed her brown eyes at him and pushed his shoulder questioningly. “What’s going on, Fitz?”

It surprised him that he didn’t even feel eager to tell her. And not because he thought that she was going to spill his news or anything; he knew that Skye could keep a secret if it was really important. He trusted Skye almost more than anyone in the world. But right now all he could think about was Jemma. “Look, I’ll tell you, but I can’t yet, okay? There’s something really important I have to do first.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Yeah?”

“I have to tell Jemma,” he said emphatically. When Skye just sighed, he said, “No, I have to _tell her_ , Skye. I want to tell her everything. I want her to know how I feel and I just want it to be special.”

She studied him for a second, smiling proudly. “Are you wearing her scarf?”

The question startled him, his hand flying up to his neck. “What? Um, yeah. I mean, she leant it to me to go to Herbology because I forgot mine, and then when I did get mine, well, this one was so warm and it smells like her, so I just gave her mine to wear. But did you hear what I said? About Jemma?”

Sighing, she leaned against the wall of the castle. “The whole being in love with her thing? Yeah, dude, she already knows. You’re wearing each other’s scarves, for god’s sake. The whole school already knows.”

He toyed with the fringe that hung off the edge of the scarf. “I need to tell her. I need to say it. And I want it to be amazing for her. Because she’s amazing.”

“If you wrote it in mashed potatoes on the Ravenclaw table at dinner she’d probably think that was amazing just because it was you doing it.”

Giving her a look, he shook her head. “It’s _Jemma_ , Skye. I’m going to put everything into this, and if you don’t want to be involved—“

Skye reached out and grabbed his arm. “Relax. I just wanted to make sure you were fully committed to this because, no offense, I’ve seen you lose your nerve a couple of times. I’ve seen you lose your nerve saying hi to the girl. Plus, I wanted to bust your chops for not telling me why you were dragged into Fury’s office this morning, I swear to god I spent like three hours wondering if you had been expelled.” When he had visibly relaxed, she smiled at him. “Now, what’s the plan? I assume you’re not making me late to class without a plan?”

Fitz checked his watch. He only had a few minutes to get to History of Magic, but Selvig never collected papers until the end of class anyway and he probably wouldn’t even notice Fitz coming in late. “Do you need to go?”

“It’s Coulson, I’ll live.” She tugged on his arm eagerly. “Plan?”

“Do you still have those Dungbombs you got when we went to Hogsmeade?”

Skye grinned widely. “Oh, I am liking this plan.”

He took a deep breath. “While Jemma and Triplett are doing their prefect rounds, I want you to set off some Dungbombs right by the Astronomy Tower. Not late enough that there will be a class soon, but late enough that it won’t interrupt their patrol too much,” he said. “Go get Jemma and Triplett and tell them about the Dungbombs and tell Jemma that there are more up in the Tower or that you think you saw someone run up there, whatever you think she’ll believe. And tell Triplett whatever will get him away from there so that he doesn’t ruin it. And I’ll be waiting for her up there to…well, you know.”

Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she said, “So, this all sounds great, except for the me handling Jemma and Triplett part. What exactly am I going to tell Triplett to make him leave a bunch of Dungbombs and let Jemma go up there alone?”

“You’re Skye, you’ll think of something.”

“Can you do it after their rounds?”

He shook his head. “Even with the snow, there’s an Astronomy class tonight, it’ll be too late. And don’t tell me to wait until tomorrow, I don’t care if it’s reasonable or logical. I need to tell her, Skye.”

She tapped her foot and let out a long breath. “What if we had…Sharon!” Skye said, waving down the hallway at the blonde. “How are you?”

Sharon walked over to them slowly. “Not bad, if you forget about this,” she said. She had been holding a towel to her arm and she lifted it, showing a nasty burn mark. “Care of Magical Creatures is not as fun as it looks sometimes.”

Fitz and Skye winced, and Fitz said, “Did you go to the hospital wing?”

“Yeah, Professor Barton sent me to Dr. Streiten. This towel has some kind of goo on it and he gave me a bunch more to keep applying, but apparently the true healing salve for Khalkotauroi is a hell of a potion to brew and he wasn’t sure when Garrett would be able to get to it.” Sharon made a face at her arm, then wrapped it in the towel again. “I was actually hoping maybe Jemma would be able to do it for me, if Garrett could give her the ingredients. She can do basically anything in Potions, right?”

As Fitz nodded, Skye smiled. “Funny you should mention Jemma, actually.”

“Skye, don’t, she’s injured.”

“No, what’s wrong with Jemma?” Sharon asked, concern evident in her voice. “Does it have something to do with why you weren’t in Herbology?”

“Nothing is wrong with Jemma,” Fitz said quickly.

Skye continued hurriedly, “However, you may have noticed that Fitz is hopelessly in love with her. I don’t think it’s escaped the attention of literally anyone in this castle.” When Sharon just laughed, Fitz flushed red. “He has decided tonight to finally tell Jemma about it, as if she didn’t know, and he wants to make a big romantic deal out of it, but that involves getting Triplett out of the way and there is only one of me. So I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind helping to distract him during their rounds tonight so Fitzsimmons can do their true love forever thing. Oh, and also he says he won’t tell anyone why he was suddenly called into Fury’s office until he tells her all of his love confession stuff, and don’t you seriously want to know why?”

He covered his face with his hands, horribly embarrassed, until Sharon said, “I’m totally in.” At Fitz’s surprised stare, she shrugged and said, “Look, happy, smiley Fitz is a lot easier to live and work with than depressed, crying Fitz. I have to imagine that giddy-in-love Fitz would be even a step up from that. Not to mention that newly-dating-you Jemma is probably a lot more likely to make that potion for me than the not-dating-you, super jealous Jemma that I’ve had to deal with in the past. Oh, yeah, I’ve noticed that.” Fitz was slightly affronted at this, but Sharon just smiled. “I’m nice, but I’m not completely altruistic. And now I really do want to know why Fury pulled you out of Herbology. The intrigue, it’s kind of killing me.”

Elbowing Fitz in the side, Skye pointed at Sharon and nodded. “I like her, we should keep her after all this is over. And not just so I’m not all third-wheely all over the place.”

Sharon grinned. “So I just have to get Trip away from where the magic is gonna happen?”

“The Astronomy Tower,” Fitz specified. “Skye is going to get Jemma up there, but we need to get them to split up because I don’t really want to talk to her with him there. Mood ruiner.”

“Yeah, he’s done that once or twice with me and Steve, I hear you,” she said, nodding understandingly. “Anything else?”

Licking his lips, Fitz said, “Could you both see if you can collect any old quills and empty inkpots you can find? It’s for something I want to do tonight.”

Skye looked at him strangely. “Your weird request is my command.” She pulled the sleeve of Fitz’s robe up his arm, cursing when she saw the time on his watch. “I’ve gotta go, Coulson is gonna kill me. I’m telling him I was with you, prefecting or something.”

The look Fitz gave her was one of alarm. “Fine, but tell him I didn’t tell you any secrets, just prefect stuff.”

“What?”

“Just promise me, Skye!”

“Oh my god, fine, weirdo. I’ll see you after classes are done.” She took off at a run down the hall, practically flying into the Charms classroom.

Sharon rocked back and forth on her heels. “That is some secret.”

Rubbing his eyes tiredly, Fitz said, “I promise that I’ll tell you. I just need to tell Jemma first.”

She held her uninjured hand up in surrender. “Hey, I get it. There are definitely things I tell Steve first, over Trip or my parents or anyone. You’ll hear no argument from me.”

Fitz sighed and leaned against the wall. “You think Selvig is gonna give us detention for being late?”

“Late?” Sharon took out a capped bottle from her bag, gently pouring some of its thick, light yellow cream on to her towel. After putting the bottle back, she pressed the towel to her burn again. “We can’t be late. I was in the hospital wing and you heard I was hurt and waited with me until they let me go because I needed someone to walk me back from class. Selvig’s not going to check what time I was released.”

“Using your injury to get us out of trouble?” He smiled at her. “I knew there was a rebel under there.”

She rolled her eyes, then started pulling him towards Selvig’s classroom. “Yeah, well, you’re volunteering your future girlfriend to make my potion so I don’t have to hear how busy Garrett is and how I should have been more careful because he’s an asshole, so who’s really winning in the end?”

Fitz grinned at the ground. “Me. I’m finally gonna tell Jemma.”

“I’m really happy for you, you know,” she said gently. “I know we didn’t spend a lot of time together before this year, but I could tell at least since we started being prefects together that you were crazy about her and I’ve heard about it even longer than that. So don’t take Skye’s teasing to heart. You make it special. You guys deserve it.”

As they came up to the door of the History of Magic classroom, Sharon took a deep breath. “If Selvig asks, I am in a lot of pain and you helped me walk here but we really wanted to be able to turn our papers in.”

This alarmed Fitz. “Are you in pain?”

“Oh, not at all.” She waved her arm around wildly. “They couldn’t really heal it, but they gave me something for the pain. I’m feeling pretty great, actually.” Sharon winked at him. “But Selvig doesn’t have to know that.”

Fitz grinned at her, finding himself suddenly very much in agreement with Skye. He wanted to keep Sharon too.

\---

The last class he had of the day was Arithmancy with Jemma. This, of course, made it hard to ditch her afterwards, as did his natural reluctance to leave her side. “Did you want to get another hot chocolate?” she asked after Hill dismissed them. “Oh, or maybe some eggnog? Might make it feel like it’s almost the holidays.”

Fitz’s usual response was to say yes to everything she suggested, but he forced the urge down even though he desperately wanted to share some eggnog with her. “Wish I could, but I think I have to meet with Weaver about what I missed in Herbology.”

“Do you want me to come with you? No offense, but I’m much better in Herbology than you are and Professor Weaver loves me. I bet if I know what you missed I could get you easily caught up over the weekend.” Her smile was helpful and generous and for the first time he was not grateful for it.

“Thanks, but, actually, I have to go see Coulson first. He has things to tell me and then he’s supposed to tell me if I need to go see Weaver now or later or maybe even Monday,” he said quickly.

“Oh.” She looked confused, which made sense because he was lying and doing it poorly. “Alright then. Maybe I’ll see you later? And you can finally tell me what you were trying to tell me earlier.”

He smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s a promise.” Feeling suddenly bold, he leaned over and kissed her cheek before practically sprinting towards Gryffindor Tower. Sharon was already waiting outside. “Hey,” he said breathlessly from his run. “How’s your arm?”

“It’s still there,” she said, showing him the shiny, red burn. “I hope we managed to get a lot of inkpots and quills for you. I told everyone to just leave their empty ones on the table in the common room and if we got a suitable amount, you, Steve, and I would agree to look the other way on patrol for Gryffindors for the rest of the term.”

“Bribery, I like it,” he said. Just then, Skye came walking down the hall towards them, carrying a large sack tossed over her shoulder. He stared at her, mildly alarmed. “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

She dropped it at his feet. “You want empty inkpots and quills, you got them. There’s a ton in here.”

Sharon gaped at the other girl. “How?”

“Hufflepuffs are a generous bunch, I’ll have you know. I think there are even some in there that still have ink?” Skye rolled her shoulders, then tried to massage the kink out of her right one. “Basically I just asked everyone I had class with and everyone else I know. I know a lot of people.”

“I didn’t know a lot of people meant the entire school.” Fitz hefted the bag into his arms, surprised at its weight. “Thanks, Skye.”

Running her hand through her hair, she said, “If my work here is done, I’ll get out of your way so you can do whatever you’re gonna do with all of those.” Fitz cleared his throat and she made a face at him. “What now?”

“I was just hoping that you would maybe try and go distract Jemma for me?” he said weakly. “Do girl things or whatever. Study.” Skye looked unconvinced. “She said something about wanting eggnog. It’s just that she wanted to hang out and I made up a stupid excuse and I don’t want her to come looking for me while I’m trying to get ready.”

Rolling her eyes, Skye said, “Fine. But only because there might be eggnog involved.” She waved goodbye to the two of them before heading off.

Sharon gave the password to the Fat Lady. “She does a lot for you,” Sharon noted casually.

“Yeah, she does. I should probably just do her Transfiguration homework for her a lot more often. Not that Banner wouldn’t spot the difference immediately, but Skye could use a free Outstanding here and there.” When they walked into the common room, Steve waved them over to one of the corners. The table was littered with broken quills and various empty or cracked inkpots.

After Sharon gave him a quick kiss, Steve said, “I assume these are for you.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Do we know what this is for?”

Fitz emptied the contents of the bag Skye had given him, then sorted everything into piles. “I’m going to make candles,” he said, sitting down at an empty chair in the middle of the table. It was a theory, technically, but one he had been throwing around his mind all day and that had a lot of basis in actual Transfiguration theory.

Pulling an empty inkpot in front of him, he magically added a bit of water into it. Then he pulled an old piece of scrap parchment from Arithmancy out, ripping a small chunk of it off and stuffing it into the bottom of the pot. After standing one of the quill remnants in the opening, he pulled his wand out. The spell he had in mind didn’t have any words to it, but he told himself that a lot of higher magic Transfiguration didn’t. It was a complicated ward gesture and the magic was a bit draining, but—as usual when he put his mind to something—the end product was just about what he expected.

“Are you kidding me?” Sharon said, grabbing it from in front of him. The shape of the inkpot hadn’t changed much, but now acted as a glass candle holder for the cream colored candle inside of it. Where the quill had once stood, a wick now jutted out, waiting for the inevitable light. Sharon teasingly pouted at her boyfriend. “You’ve never transfigured me a candle.”

Steve stared in awe at the one in her hand. “I can barely do my Transfiguration homework, let alone worry about making you candles. Is this what you do with Coulson?”

Fitz rubbed the back of his neck, a bit embarrassed by their praise. “Sort of? I mean, I do this same kind of thing. This is an idea I’ve kind of been tossing around, I thought I might as well try it out today. Seemed like a good enough reason.”

“You thought you might try it out today?” Sharon said, pitch high in disbelief. She shook her head as she put the candle back down on the table. “Yeah, I kinda hate you.” Counting out the number of empty pots on the table quickly, she said, “You’re not going to do all of these, are you? You’ll be exhausted. It’ll take forever.”

The task was a bit daunting, but Fitz was already assembling the second candle. “I was going to try. At least until dinner. See how many I can get through until then.”

Patting him heartily on the back, Steve said, “Sam and I were gonna go down to the kitchen and grab some snacks while we did a paper for Charms. I’ll go get him so we can go now. Sounds like you might need some food to keep your energy up.”

Sharon tugged at Steve’s sleeve as she pulled a chair around to sit next to Fitz. “Oh, get popcorn,” she said eagerly. “And pretzels!”

“Yes, dear,” he said with a chuckle, kissing the top of her head. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Drumming her fingertips on the tabletop, Sharon waited until Fitz was done with the transfiguration spell of the second candle before she asked, “Okay, what do I do here?”

He eyed her warily. “I mean this with the least offense possible, but this magic is kind of out of your scope at the moment.”

“Yeah, Fitz, I know that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I can…set it up for you or something, right? Show me how to do that and I’ll get them ready so you only have to do the spell work. Save you some steps. We’ll knock these right out.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”

“No, I’m just sitting here and saying that to walk away from you.”

After setting her up with more parchment and showing her how he was putting together the individual sections of the transfigured piece, he moved on to the next one and they fell into an easy rhythm together. “This is really romantic of you, Fitz,” Sharon said as she slid over an inkpot. “I think she’s going to be really impressed.”

He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I hope so. I just…I dunno, I feel like this has been a long time coming and, well, if she laughs or turns me down or says she never wants to speak to me again, at least I did all I could to let her know how I felt and make it special.”

“She’s not going to laugh.”

“She could laugh.”

Sharon elbowed him in the ribs. “She’s not going to laugh! Or any of those other things. She’s going to run into your arms and tell you she loves you and it’s going to be magical, pun intended.”

He took a deep breath before attempting the next spell. “What makes you so sure?”

“Would you accept female intuition as an answer?”

“No.”

“What about gossip?” Sharon wiggled her eyebrows at him and Fitz hesitated. “I mean, you know I don’t like gossip, but I heard from some Ravenclaw girls—and they’re usually pretty up front with me because of Trip—that Jemma was so upset that you were dating Skye because she had been wanting you to ask her out and that it was really awkward around the House because she was avoiding Trip because of their whole date thing. Hence why they were so angry at you for breaking her heart, except for the ones who were also upset at her for breaking Trip’s heart.”

Fitz tapped the end of his wand against the table. “So, why do you even want me to be with Jemma? Wouldn’t you want her to be with your cousin? Or just be mad at her for breaking his heart?”

Sharon snorted loudly. “He’s a big boy, he’ll get over it. I mean, if he didn’t realize she was already taken emotionally, if not technically, that’s his own fault. Agreeing to go to Hogsmeade with him isn’t anything more than just agreeing to go to Hogsmeade with him, and from what I heard it didn’t even sound like that good of a date,” she said pointedly. “Not actually worth freaking out over. He’s cute, he’ll find another girl who isn’t basically married to you. I talked to him about your little plan tonight, by the way.”

“What?” Fitz almost messed up his transfiguration, but managed to finish the spell before staring at Sharon in shock. “That’s not what we talked about. You were just supposed to distract him.”

She shrugged. “I know. But I figured that it would be better if I just talked to him. I know you kind of have him pegged as the enemy, but he’s really not, Fitz. He realizes that Jemma isn’t into him and he wants her to be happy and he—like literally everyone else in this entire school—knows that means being with you.” When Fitz opened his mouth to protest, Sharon cut him off. “You had a screaming fight outside of Potions and the smartest girl in school didn’t show up to class for the rest of the day, Fitz. People notice that stuff. So Trip is on your side. Dungbombs go off, Skye tells Jemma to go up to the Astronomy Tower, I come running up with a bigger disaster than I need Trip for, he knows he’s supposed to tell Jemma to go upstairs to run into your arms and come with me. Team Fitzsimmons is a go.”

Bouncing his leg nervously, Fitz nodded. “Yeah, okay. I guess you know him better than I do. Thanks.”

She pushed another inkpot to be transfigured his way. “I do know him. And I also know that the Astronomy Tower is where you and Jemma first met in First Year and I think you’re adorable.” She laughed as Fitz turned bright red.

“Shut up,” he muttered underneath his breath. They sat in silence for a while, working through the items that needed to be transfigured. After a while, a question burst out of Fitz: “Do you really think she’s going to…to run into my arms? Am I just wasting my time?”

“I really think so. She clearly cares about you, Fitz,” Sharon said. “She acts jealous of me, and Steve and I are even more married than you guys are. Even if I didn’t have my insider knowledge or knew what you fought about or knew how she reacted during your fight, I’ve spent two seconds with you guys. She basically spends every minute looking at you like she wants to ask you why you haven’t kissed her yet. She stares at you all the time like you freaking invented magic.”

“Skye says that sometimes,” Fitz said softly. “That she stares at me.”

“You just don’t notice it because you’re too busy staring at her.” Sharon slung an arm around his shoulders. “And, frankly, I’ve experienced way too much sad Fitz lately that if there was any chance of this failing I would shut down this entire operation immediately. I would certainly not be helping. So relax.” She gestured to all the empty inkwells. “Let’s get through all of this. And let’s get you the girl who has been waiting for you for what I assume to be a very long time.”

Looking over at her, Fitz smiled warmly. “Thanks, Sharon. I really don’t deserve this.”

“Oh, I know, I assumed you knew you were doing all of my Transfiguration homework too.”

 She grinned at him and Fitz laughed and said, “Yeah, well, it’s only fair, I guess.” Then, with renewed vigor, he set forth to finish the Transfiguration, using the only thing in the world he loved more than that to guide him.


	12. Chapter 12

He couldn’t really say he was nervous until he heard the sounds of the Dungbombs go off. At that point, he knew it was only a matter of time. Skye was already on her way to get Jemma and Triplett. Sharon was waiting in the wings for her time to shine. Up in the Astronomy Tower, there wasn’t much he could do but pace.

Fitz could hear vague sounds, but not words. He knew when Skye, Jemma, and Triplett had arrived on the scene, knew they were talking about what a mess it was, knew Skye was trying not to give away his position upstairs and doing everything she could to get Jemma to go up. Triplett, he hoped, was supporting this choice, only to be seconded by the fourth, sudden voice of Sharon. It was like being a director of a play he wasn’t allowed to watch, hoping that the audience understood the point he had been trying to convey all along.

The conversation stopped suddenly, but he wasn’t startled until he heard steps on the stairs. He let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm his nerves. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work and he expected to feel his heart beat through his chest at any moment.

Jemma looked at him in confusion as she walked into the Astronomy Tower. “Fitz? What are you doing here?”

“Hi,” he said softly, licking his lips.

Her gaze panned throughout the tower, taking in the dozens of floating candles that cast light and shadow across the walls and ceiling of the room. “What is going on here?” she said, voice hardly more than a whisper. “Skye came to get Antoine and I, told us about this Dungbomb attack and—“

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, that was me. I mean, they were Skye’s Dungbomb’s but…”

“Why would you do that?” She crossed her arms over her chest, standing a significant distance away from him. “If this is about Antoine, then you can just stop it. There’s no need to prank him, he’s a good guy.”

“It’s not a prank,” Fitz assured her vehemently. “He knows that. It’s not about him. I just needed a way to get you up here so that I could talk to you.”

Jemma swallowed hard. “Oh really? Because I’ve been trying to talk to you all day and I feel like you’ve been avoiding me.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I thought we were getting through with all this, Fitz. There was clearly something you weren’t saying on our walk earlier and I think you deliberately misled me after Arithmancy because I saw Professor Weaver in the hall right afterwards and she said that you didn’t have to make up your work in Herbology because—“

“Because Tony Stark is coming to see me.” He tried not to wince as the words came out of his mouth. This was not how he wanted to tell her this, tell her anything. This was not the speech he had prepared.

She just stared at him. “What?”

After attempting to get is thoughts together, he said, “Headmaster Fury pulled me out of class today to let me know that Tony Stark is coming to Hogwarts next week to meet me. He’s friends with Professor Banner from when they attended Hogwarts and Banner told him about me and he wants to meet me and I guess see my work and talk about my future. That’s why I wasn’t in class. That’s what I couldn’t tell you right away. I’m kind of supposed to keep it hush hush as much as possible.”

Jemma took several steps forward so she could look him in the eye. “Fitz, that is amazing. That is…” She as at a loss for words for a moment. “That is unbelievable! I mean, I can believe it because you’re so brilliant and talented and everyone should want to work with you, but I am so happy and proud of you!”

“Thank you,” he said, warmth pooling in his chest. He felt his hands shaking and he squeezed them into fists to get them to stop. “But you know, it felt like it didn’t matter.”

A darkness fell over her face as she shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“I got a letter from Tony Stark last week telling me that he wanted to meet me and that he hoped to be able to maybe even come to Hogwarts to do so,” Fitz said quietly. “And the only person I wanted to tell was you. And I couldn’t because we weren’t talking. And what should have been the best moment of my life didn’t matter because I couldn’t share it with you. And I really, really understood that none of those really big moments in my life are ever going to matter unless you’re there with me.”

“Fitz…” she whispered, and he could see tears pooling in her eyes.

He smiled lightly, taking her hand in his. “So I didn’t tell anyone. Then today when I heard, you were the only person I wanted to tell all over again. That’s all I could think of.”

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she said, “You didn’t tell _anyone_ when you got that letter?”

“Not even Banner,” he said, chuckling drily. “Which made the second letter kind of awkward, I think they would have liked a heads up.”

“Not your mum? Not Skye?”

He closed his eyes, smiled, then opened his eyes to look at her sweetly. “Skye is my friend. One of my best friends, I’m not sure what I’d do without her on some days. But that’s all. You’re more than that. You’re everything to me, Jemma.” She inhaled sharply, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “You know, it’s hard being a Gryffindor sometimes. Everyone expects you to be brave all the time and I’m not, really. But I’m so tired of being scared of losing you. I don’t ever want to feel like I did last week when I couldn’t talk to you because that was the loneliest, saddest week of my life. But I also don’t want to feel like I did an hour ago, when you didn’t know that I love you because I was too afraid of saying it. I love you too much for that. I really do, Jemma, I love you.”

She threw her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his own around her waist. For several minutes, he just held her tightly as she pressed her face against his neck, breathing him in. Finally, Jemma pulled back, staring at Fitz as a few stray tears spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, Fitz. I love you too. I’m so sorry. I was so awful.”

“No, Jemma, you’re amazing.”

Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve been so jealous. I thought you were spending so much time with Skye because you liked her. I wondered if you weren’t tutoring her so much to be alone with her and why wouldn’t she like you, you’re perfect. I thought you wanted me to go out with Antoine so that you could go out with Skye and I just blew up because I was so hurt and I almost ruined everything. I was so cruel to you and Skye because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing you because I love you so much.” She rested her forehead against the hollow of his neck. “And I was so rude to Sharon too, who I know is taken and only wants to be your friend, but I was so possessive because I thought you belonged to me.”

“I do,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “They understand, they helped me with this. They got me supplied for the candles, and Sharon talked to Triplett to get him out of the way. And Skye charmed them to float for this long and stay lit and she set off the Dungbombs and went to get you.” He stroked Jemma’s cheek lightly with his thumb. “Skye’s been on our side the whole time. She’s been telling me to kiss you for over a year.”

Jemma took a step back to look at him. Then, gently, she took his head in her hands and kissed him. Fitz kissed her back deeply, hand going around to cup the back of her neck. The kiss was soft and exploratory until his other hand found her hip and she suddenly become eager and insistent, her body pressing up against his. He wasn’t sure which one of them whimpered, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was him.

When he felt her knees shake, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled slowly away from the kiss. Her eyes fluttered open and they stared at each other, breathing heavily. Jemma rested her hands on his chest as she tried to catch her breath. “Don’t you hate it when Skye is right about everything?”

Running his long fingers through her hair, he shrugged lightly and said, “It’s not all bad.” Then he kissed her again until he could taste the noises she was making in the back of her throat.

They kissed for far longer than two people in a soon to be used classroom should be kissing, but neither of them were in any urge to remind the other of timeframes or of future students. Lying her head on Fitz’s chest, she stared up at him with adoring eyes. “I can’t believe Tony Stark is coming to see you. He’s going to be blown away by how amazing you are.”

“I have the letters with me,” Fitz said, digging around in the pocket of his robes. He plucked a candle from the air, holding it close so she could read by it.

She quickly read them despite the dim light. “Fitz, I can’t even begin to fathom how excited you must have been. How excited you must be now!” She hugged him again, tightly. “Your father would be _so proud_ of you.”

For a second, he couldn’t breathe around the lump in his throat. He just hugged her tighter, trying to match his strength for how much he loved her. There could never be any person on this planet who could ever possibly understand him like she did. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed her temple.

Glancing over his shoulder, she murmured, “Where did you get these candles? Did you and Skye raid the Divination room? Blake will kill you and even Coulson won’t be able to save you.”

He laughed and kissed her sweetly. “No, I made them. You know I wouldn’t go to the Divination room.”

“You _made_ them?”

Rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, he said, “Yeah, um, empty inkpot, old quill, some water, parchment, and I transfigured them. Candle in a glass cup.”

She stared at him with her mouth open and only all his strength of will made him hold back from kissing her again. “You are the smartest person I know,” she said seriously. “That is amazing. Tony Stark is going to be blown away by you. Honestly, he’s just going to be floored by how talented you are.”

As she leaned up to kiss him, the sudden sound of a very fake bird call came up the stairs. Jemma frowned at him. “What was that?”

Fitz sighed, leaning his forehead against hers. “That’s our warning. Thirty minutes until the Astronomy class is supposed to start.”

“Right.” She pressed a kiss against his jaw. “They have classes in here.”

“Thought it would be best if they didn’t interrupt us.”

“I would appreciate it if my Head of House did not catch us snogging, yes,” she said, giggling. “I guess we should go then?”

Lacing his fingers through hers, he nodded. “Let me just get all these candles so she doesn’t realize something happened up here. I don’t want her asking you guys any questions that you don’t want to have to answer.” The bag he had carried the candles up in was laying by the side of the wall and he picked it up before starting to blow the candles out one by one. They immediately cooled, per his design, and he stuck them in the bag.

Jemma helped, blowing out candles and smiling as she saw the wax cool and harden before her eyes. “I’m keeping these,” she announced as she put an armful of candles into the bag he held open for her.

“What?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

“You made them for me, so I’m keeping them.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that, but said, “What at you going to do with all of these?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know. Put them in my dorm room. Maybe bring some of them back home over the holidays. They’re beautiful.”

Laughing, he said, “Your room will look like the Divination room.”

“I don’t care,” she said defiantly. “You made them for me. I love them. The other girls will just have to accept it.”

They finished clearing out the Astronomy Tower and Jemma held his hand as they walked down the twisting staircase. The hallway outside of the tower was clear of Dungbombs. All that was there was Skye who was holding Fitz’s wristwatch and watching them cautiously. “I’m sorry to interrupt?” she said hesitantly. “I already had to scare off a few people who wanted to go up early and set up their telescopes. I didn’t hear any yelling or anything, so I thought maybe things were going pretty okay. Did…did things go pretty okay?”

Wordlessly, Jemma let go of Fitz’s hand and threw her arms around Skye. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “So, so sorry.”

“It’s okay?” Skye said, hugging her back. “I’m not sure what you’re apologizing for, so I’m probably not mad about it.”

“I’ve been such a horrible friend.” She looked at Skye with her eyes full of tears. “I treated you awfully because I thought you and Fitz were together or were going to get together and I didn’t want that, which was mean and…and disloyal! I was scared you were going to take him away from me.”

Skye shook her head quickly. “Jemma, I would never do that. First, because ew, gross.” She stuck her tongue out at Fitz from over Jemma’s shoulder. “And second, because it would be impossible. He belongs to you. Like, one hundred percent. I think he cried when Triplett asked you out. I’m pretty sure.”

Fitz cleared his throat. “Skye.”

Looking over her shoulder at him, Jemma smiled fondly, her brown eyes sparkling. “I think I cried a little bit too,” she admitted.

Skye squeezed Jemma’s hand. “I just wanted you two to be happy. I would never do anything to stop that.”

“I know that now. Thank you, Skye.” The two girls hugged again and Skye whispered something in Jemma’s ear, which she responded to with a nod and a loud giggle.

When she stepped back next to Fitz, he wrapped his arm around her waist. Skye looked expectantly back and forth between the two of them. “Okay, so now that I don’t have to deal with depressed Fitz or awkward library studying anymore—something I’m extremely thankful for, by the way—can I please know what the hell happened this morning?”

Jemma bit her bottom lip excitedly. “Oh, please tell her!”

Scanning up and down the hallway, Fitz’s stomach twisted. “There’s going to be Astronomy students coming back any second. Come on.” The three of them headed downstairs, then down a dead end corridor. Skye was practically bouncing with anticipation as Fitz said, “Okay, first of all, you cannot tell anyone, Skye. I mean it. This is the biggest secret I’ve ever told you, I don’t even think Fury wants me to tell you but I am because you deserve to know.”

She stared at him as seriously as you possibly can. “I promise, this stays between the three of us. I won’t tell.”

“Tony Stark is coming here to see me next week.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t Skye’s blank stare. “Oh, uh, cool? Is that like your uncle or something?”

“Skye,” Jemma said sharply, “Tony Stark is a brilliant inventor. He’s one of the biggest tycoons in the wizarding world. Stark Industries makes everything. I think you have a Stark Industries telescope, Stark Industries scales!”

“Whoa, okay, sorry,” she said quickly. “Just…must be a wizard thing. Never heard of him.”

Running a hand through his hair, Fitz jogged his memory for any close comparisons. “He’s…he’s like the…the Steve Jobs of the wizarding world. Without the computers. And he’s in a lot more different industries. Steve Jobs if Steve Jobs did computers and cars and appliances and…calculators. Everything.”

Finally looking suitably impressed, she raised her eyebrows and nodded. “And he’s coming here to see you?”

Jemma squeezed his arm excitedly. “Professor Banner told him how amazing Fitz is and he’s coming to meet him and look at his work.”

“It probably won’t be a huge deal.” Fitz kissed Jemma’s forehead, amazed that he could just do that now and wanting to take full advantage of the privilege. “He might just want to say hi and maybe catch up with Banner.”

Shaking her head, Skye punched him affectionately in the shoulder. “That sounds like a huge deal, Fitz. I’m pretty sure wizarding business superstars don’t just come out to Hogwarts for no reason.” She held up her hand for a high five, which he delivered. “Your really cool secret is safe with me. But can we all agree on no more secrets this year? I’m exhausted.”

“I’ll agree to that,” Jemma said, resting her head on Fitz’s shoulder.

“Agreed.” Fitz smiled appreciatively at Skye.

She winked back. “Alright, lovebirds, I actually am tired so I’m going to leave you to do whatever you guys are going to do—and don’t think I don’t have quite a few guesses as to what that might be.” Her braid bounced behind her as she headed down the hall to the staircase, but she turned back for a moment to point at Fitz. “By the way, you owe me big time for all of this, not to mention wasting all of my Dungbombs, so don’t forget that when you become rich and famous.”

“Got it,” he said, giving her a thumbs up. When she was out of sight, he raised his eyebrows at Jemma. “What now?”

She made a low noise in the back of her throat. “We’ve got a couple of hours before curfew. I could drop off my candles at the common room, and then we could…” She trailed off, then kissed him again, slowly.

Fitz groaned against her mouth, caressing her arm gently. “I would like that very much.”

“Was hoping you would say that.” Smiling, she took his hand and led him towards the Ravenclaw common room. Fitz lugged the large bag of candles with him, throwing it over his shoulder.

With Jemma pressed against his side, Fitz had never felt more comfortable. “Hey, do you think I can have one of the candles next Friday? I want to show Mr. Stark.”

“Of course, that’s such a good idea. He’ll be so impressed.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I can’t believe my boyfriend is going to meet Tony Stark.”

It startled him a bit how easily she said that—there was no hesitation, no blushing. She was fully confident in this sudden change in their relationship. “Yes. Your boyfriend is.” And once the words came out of his mouth, he realized they were just as easy for him to say too. He was Jemma’s boyfriend and wow, was that a good person to be.

She nuzzled his neck. “I still can’t believe you went to all the trouble to transfigure all those. Must have taken you forever.”

“You were worth it,” he said honestly. “And I had some help. Skye got a lot of the stuff for me and Sharon rallied the Gryffindors for everything else. Sharon made sort of an assembly line so all I had to do was the spells. Steve and Sam even got me stuff to eat.”

She was silent for a beat. “I have a lot of people to thank.”

Squeezing her hand, he said, “They wanted me to be able to tell you because they knew we were important to each other.”

Stopping in the middle of the hallway, Jemma wrapped her arms around his waist. “You are unbelievably important to me.” Fitz pressed his lips to hers, feeling her sigh against him. Her hands rubbed up and down his back, making him shiver under her touch.

The sudden sound of a throat being cleared made them break away. Sharon and Triplett stared at them with shared looks of amusement. “Well,” Triplett said casually. “Guess we didn’t have to go see how that went.”

“Guess not.” Sharon grinned at them, a look of relief on her face. “Did you like the candles? We all worked hard on them.”

Jemma flushed happily. “I did, thank you. I’m keeping them all. I was just dropping them off in the common room.”

“I can do that for you if you want,” Triplett offered. “Since you decided to slack off for the rest of our patrol, we are off the clock now. I was gonna go back to the Tower common room anyway. I’ll stick ‘em up there for you.”

“Yeah?” Fitz said, a bit reluctant even as he lowered the bag from over his shoulder.

Triplett held out his hand with a smile. “Yeah, hand it over. No point in going all the way there unnecessarily when I was already planning on it.”

He hesitated for a second, then passed the bag over to Triplett, who seemed a bit surprised by the weight. “Thanks, Triplett.” He wondered if his thanks actually conveyed everything he should be thanking the Ravenclaw for: thanks for helping tonight, thanks for not getting in the way even though he could have, thanks for caring about Jemma’s happiness.

“No problem, man.” He held his free hand out in a fist to Fitz, who bumped back in a gesture of solidarity. After giving Sharon a sidelong look, he said, “If no one else needs anything, I’m gonna turn in for the night.”

“Good night, Antoine,” Jemma said, wrapping her arms around the newly unencumbered Fitz. “Thank you.”

Sharon waved goodbye to her cousin before looking at Jemma. “I do need something, but from you.” She rolled up the sleeve of her robes, showing the burn she had sustained earlier in the day.

Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as she gasped. “Oh, Sharon, what happened?”

“Had a small run in with a Khalkotauroi in Care of Magical Creatures,” she explained. “They gave me some stuff to put on it in the hospital wing, but apparently the stuff that will actually heal it is a really difficult potion and who knows when Mr. Super Busy Garrett will be able to get to that. I was wondering if—”

Jemma nodded quickly, giving Sharon a gentle hug. “I’ll look it up and get started on it first thing in the morning. Consider it a thank you and an apology. For everything.”

“Both are more than accepted, Jemma. You’re welcome and thank you. I’m just glad you two are happy.” Sharon looked back and forth between her and Fitz, smiling mischievously. “And, uh, you guys didn’t hear this from me, but on the fourth floor in the northwest corner of the castle, there’s a small alcove, you really can’t even see it if you’re not looking for it. Practically invisible really, hardly anyone knows about it. It’s a really good place to sit and, um, _talk_.”

Fitz turned completely red, but Jemma smiled brightly and grabbed his hand. “Thank you, Sharon,” she said in a sing-song voice. “We’ll see you later.”

Happily letting her drag him along the staircases to the fourth floor, he pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. “I love you, Jemma.” The feeling of being able to say that was almost as wonderful as the look she gave him before she kissed him.

“I love you too, Fitz.”


	13. Chapter 13

The library was not meant for pacing and Fitz dodged a couple of third year Ravenclaws as he stalked past the rows of books again. From her chair at the table, Jemma sighed. “Fitz, would you please sit down? You’re only making yourself more nervous.”

“Plus,” Sam said, “You’re kind of making me dizzy.”

In the past week, they had traded the small round table for a larger rectangular one. The intimate privacy of hiding in the very back of the library was somewhat disappointing to lose, but they had needed more space when Sharon, Steve, and Sam had begun to join them regularly for study sessions. The three were all staring at Fitz now as he walked back and forth along the longer side of the table, eyes tracking carpeted floor of the room. His girlfriend just rolled her eyes and tried to grab his arm as he moved past. “You have nothing to worry about!” she insisted. “He’s going to love you.”

Steve nodded. “You’re the best person at Transfiguration at this school, maybe any school. Mr. …Him is going to be just as impressed as any of us are.”

“Maybe just as impressed as Professor Banner will be when we tell him that you helped us with this Transfiguration paper?” Sam suggested. Sharon elbowed him in the side and he winced. “Alright, alright, fine, I’ll figure it out myself.”

Getting up from her chair, Jemma intercepted him mid-pace, putting her hands on his shoulders. “You’re going to do great tomorrow.”

Fitz let out a long breath. “What if I don’t? What if I say something stupid or suddenly can’t remember how to transfigure anything? Or…or…what if he thinks I’m just some kind of joke kid?” All sorts of doomsday scenarios for meeting Tony Stark had been running through his head on a constant loop, only broken up by the occasional reminder that he had the prettiest girlfriend in the world and wow were her lips soft.

“That’s not going to happen,” she said, hugging him tightly.

Sharon handed her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay to her boyfriend to double check. “You can’t psych yourself out here, Fitz. If St—you know doesn’t believe you’re good enough, that’s going to be his problem because you’re going to graduate and you’re basically going to be his financial ruin because we’ve all seen what you can do. So relax. Breathe.”

Jemma gave her a grateful smile. “Exactly. See, listen to Sharon.” Taking Fitz by the shoulders, she led him to her seat. With surprising strength, she forced him to sit down, then sat on his lap. When Fitz raised an eyebrow at her, she said, “I’m not letting you up because you’re just going to overexert yourself.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her neck where evidence of previous kisses were still fading. “I’m not going to argue with this policy.” Her cheeks burned pink as she pulled her Arithmancy book into her lap. Fitz rested his chin on her shoulder, only reading every third line or so. “I wish you could be there with me tomorrow,” he whispered in her ear.

Craning her neck to look at him, she nodded and kissed his nose. “I know. If I could, I would be, you know that. But I’ll be waiting outside Fury’s office for the moment that you’re done and then you can tell me all about it.”

It took a moment for him to understand and he frowned. “What about class? Banner told me that he tends to show up whenever is most convenient for him, even with a set meeting time and I have no idea how long it will take.”

“All of the professors know what’s going on and all of them are aware of, well, us now.” That was certainly true; Banner had given him a knowing smile on Monday and Coulson had even wished him congratulations. When they had held hands in Arithmancy, Hill had said it was about time, but not to do it in her classroom. “So I told all of the professors I have tomorrow that I will try to be in their classes, but that I plan to be there to support you and in the likely case of scheduling conflicts, you will come first.”

Fitz stared at her and noticed their friends at the other end of the table doing the same. “Did you tell that to May?” Sharon asked slowly. Jemma nodded as if this was somehow not a big deal.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Sam said, “And she didn’t just kill you right there?”

“I told her that if she wanted to give me a detention for insubordination, I would deserve it, but that I stand by my decision.” Jemma kissed Fitz on the forehead. “He’s more important than any class or spotless record.”

Steve watched Jemma closely. Then, tapping the head of his quill against his textbook, he said, “How are you not in Gryffindor?”

Jemma just smiled, but her happiness was cut short by Skye marching over to their table and dropping her bag on the floor, then sitting in her chair in a huff. Fitz raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s nothing, I’m—why is Jemma on your lap?”

“He was stressing himself out about tomorrow,” Jemma said, running her fingers through Fitz’s hair. “I’m trying to get him to calm down.”

Skye raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think ‘calm’ is what you’re going to get if you’re on his lap.”

Jemma gave her a disapproving look, then said, “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Sighing heavily, Skye busied herself by getting out her school books. “Nothing, just… Grant Ward is an asshole.”

“Amen,” Sharon said.

Sam nodded. “Grade A douchebag.”

“What happened?” Jemma asked, sharing a look of alarm with Fitz. “Did he do something to you?”

“What? No. Like he could.” When Fitz and Jemma continued to stare at her, Skye just groaned and pulled her hair in front of her, twisting it around her finger furiously. “I don’t want to get into it, not when Fitz is already all freaked out. He doesn’t need me making it worse.”

Raising his hand, Sam said, “I personally think we all would benefit from a Grant Ward Is An Asshole story. They’re my personal favorites.”

Sharon nodded vehemently; even Steve was looking at her with special interest. Skye looked over at Fitz for permission who just shrugged. “Alright, fine,” she said, kicking her feet up on the corner of the table. “So, he was supposed to tutor me today in the Hufflepuff common room. May said I’ve made significant progress since that first time, as if that wasn’t mostly you guys anyway, but whatever. And somehow—and I swear it wasn’t from me because I haven’t mentioned it to anyone—somehow he heard about Fitz’s special guest tomorrow.”

Fitz blinked in surprise. “He knows about…you know who?”

“Mmmhmmm.” Skye laughed bitterly. “So we got on that topic because he figured you would tell me and I guess if not, he was going to tell me? Regular old gossip monger, he is. But he’s not excited about a Hogwarts student getting this big opportunity, nope. He starts talking about how he doesn’t think Fitz is worthy of this attention, and wasn’t talented enough, as if he’d ever even seen Fitz do Transfiguration, which he hasn’t because he wouldn’t even be able to lie like that if he had. And he said that Fitz didn’t deserve all this special treatment and just all kinds of bullshit, it was ridiculous. Ugh!” Skye was practically shaking with anger and she sat up suddenly, opening and closing her textbook just to make noise.

Fitz swallowed hard, feeling sick to his stomach. He wondered how many other people would feel the same way if they knew; he wondered how many people knew now if the Head Boy knew and was going around talking to people about it. Jemma hugged him tightly, kissing softly all around his face.

Folding his arms across his chest, Steve leaned back in his chair. “Sounds like the Ward I know. Trash.”

“What did you say to him?” Jemma said, voice clearly showing her distress.

“I told him he was a piece of shit and he can go fuck himself,” Skye said frankly. “No one talks about Fitz like that in front of me. If I thought I could get away with hexing him, I would have.”

Fitz stretched his legs out under the table until his foot found Skye’s, kicking her lightly. “Thanks.”

She played footsie back with him. “You’re my Fitz. If I don’t stick up for you, who will?”

Jemma smiled forlornly at her. “I’m sorry he turned out to be such a disappointment.”

“Yeah, well, men. What can you do?” Sharpening her quill viciously, Skye let out a long breath. “I’m just gonna have to master this class by myself. Now, how do you spell out ‘Grant Ward can kiss my ass’ in Ancient Runes?”

Sharon snorted as something on the other side of the library caught Jemma’s attention. “I’ll be right back,” she said, giving Fitz a kiss. “Don’t you move.” Hopping off Fitz’s lap, she headed out of sight.

The sudden lack of warmth actually did make him feel suddenly nervous; it reminded him of how he was going to feel tomorrow and how she wouldn’t be there. He tried to take several deep breaths but his lungs weren’t working correctly and he bounced his knee anxiously.

Snapping her fingers in front of his face, Skye said, “Hey! You’re not letting what he said get to you, are you? Because he is nothing and he means nothing. You’re gonna rock it tomorrow and he’s gonna cry or something, I don’t know, bad things will happen to him. And only good things will happen to you, I believe that.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. Okay.”

Jemma returned just as suddenly as she had left, but this time she had Triplett in tow. “Look who I found,” she announced. There was a round of greetings and she gestured to Triplett to take Fitz’s previously occupied seat before sitting back on her boyfriend’s lap.

“How’s everyone doing?” Triplett said. He looked at Fitz, and Fitz was relieved to not see any jealousy in the other man’s eyes. “I heard about your meeting tomorrow. Congrats, man, good luck.”

This was met with an awkward silence and Fitz winced. “You, ah, heard about that?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

Skye glared at her Ancient Runes book. “Ward…”

“That news was actually not supposed to get around,” Fitz said with a sigh. “But thank you anyway, I appreciate the support.”

Clearing her throat, Jemma said lightly, “Skye, do you know what I learned recently?”

She shrugged, not looking up from her textbook. “I don’t know, that you like kissing Fitz?”

The table tittered with laughter, but Jemma fought down her blush and said, “I learned that Antoine here is excellent at Ancient Runes.”

Skye looked at Jemma, then over at a confused Triplett, then back at Jemma. “Is that so?”

“Mmmhmm.” The smile on Jemma face could only be described as sly. “In fact, apparently he’s at the head of the fifth year class in the subject.”

Grinning widely, Skye said, “Oh really?”

“Oh, right,” Sharon said, nodding slowly. “Wasn’t your grandma a code breaker during the Great Wizarding War?”

Triplett nodded. “Yeah, they used to use Ancient Runes for one of the spy codes used to pass messages.”

Skye scoot her chair across the carpet until she was sitting right next to Triplett, then slid the Ancient Runes book in front of him. The look she gave him was at least an attempt at charming. “Hello, new friend.”

Fitz tried to hide his laughter in Jemma’s neck as Triplett stared at her accusatorily. “I feel a little bit like I’ve been set up.”

Jemma shrugged innocently. At the other end of the table, Sharon snorted. “Welcome to the study group. You will never get to leave, but you will do better in Transfiguration than you ever have in your life. All in all, it’s a pretty fair trade.”

Triplett shook his head and smiled at Skye. “Tell me how I can help.”

As Fitz wrapped his arms around Jemma’s waist, holding her tightly, she pressed kisses against his forehead. “How are you feeling, love?” she said.

He licked his lips nervously. “I want to say I’m okay because that’s what you want to hear,” he admitted. “But I’m mostly freaked out.” She scratched her nails lightly down the back of his neck, sending tingles down his spine. “That feels good though.”

After kissing him softly, she said, “I don’t want you to worry yourself sick.”

“I know, I know.” He leaned his head against hers, rubbing her back. “I’m trying.”

She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “Come with me for a few minutes?” She stood up, put her bag on her shoulder, then offered him her hand. Fitz didn’t hesitate before accepting.

Skye looked at them curiously, but said, “Good, if you guys are just going to make out, you should do that elsewhere. This is a studious library.” She gestured to the book in front of herself and Triplett. “Some of us are trying to actually get some work done here.”

After sticking her tongue out at Skye, Jemma guided Fitz out of the library. They walked in silence before reaching Coulson’s classroom, which Jemma seemed happy to see was unlocked. After closing the door behind them, they took a seat on top of one of the desks. “So, what’s all this about?” he said, half-wondering if his Head of House was coming for a visit.

Jemma put her hand on the back of his neck, dragging him down for a kiss. He made a small noise of surprise, but kissed her back. His hands gripped her hips as she bit his bottom lip playfully. Jemma sucked on his tongue until he was lightheaded, and he pulled away to press kisses along her jawline. He licked along the shell of her ear and her pressure point before finding the spot on her neck that made her whimper, sucking yet another deep purple mark there.

Hearing her own moan echo in the empty classroom seemed to snap her out of her daze and she gently pushed him away. “This is not what we came here for,” she said breathlessly.

For once Skye was wrong and he was disappointed. “It’s not?”

“Well, not just that,” she said. Her whole face was flushed as she smiled at him. “Do you feel a little bit better though?”

“Oh, tons.”

She smirked. “Good answer. But I wanted to give you something and I just wanted to do it in private. Close your eyes.” He did as he was instructed and didn’t open them until he felt her put something in his hands and say, “Okay, open.”

Fitz looked down to see a Deluxe Sugar Quill. “What’s all this? Did we have a wager? Did you lose?”

Clasping her hands together, she said, “It’s for good luck tomorrow. It’s for any and all of those very important Stark Industries papers you’ll have to sign.” She kissed his cheek. “And I have not lost anything. I’ve got you.”

Swallowing hard, Fitz caressed her cheek with the back of his knuckles and pushed her hair behind her ears. “Thank you. That’s very sweet of you.” When he kissed her, he did so with all the love and affection within his heart.

She squeezed his knee. “Well, I love you. And now you’ll have a little piece of me there tomorrow cheering you on. I also got these,” she said, reaching into her bag to pull out two bottles of butterbeer.

“Where did you get all this?” he said, shaking his head and laughing.

“Had my mum send it,” she admitted as she opened the tops of the bottles. “I told her that this was a very important week for you and we had to prepare in style.” She pulled out her wand to charm them cold, then handed his to him. “We should have a toast.”

He stroked her hair gently, smiling at her so fondly he thought it would be impossible to stop. “What would you like to toast to?”

She thought for a moment. “A toast to your future, which will be brilliant and full of amazing opportunities and exciting adventures no matter how tomorrow’s meeting goes.” She tapped her bottle against his. “Even though I think it will go wonderfully tomorrow and Skye says she knows it’s going to be great.”

Fitz took a long drink of his butterbeer. “And how does Skye know that?”

“She told me she spent all week in Divination using various methods to ask about it and got all positive results. In her words, she and the fates are very close.”

He was suddenly reminded of what she had seen in the crystal ball about him and Jemma before their trip to Hogsmeade and it was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “You know, I suddenly feel a lot better.”

Jemma grinned brightly at him. “Good, I’m glad to hear that.”

Cupping his hand around the back of her neck, Fitz pulled her in for a passionate kiss. He could feel her heart beating against his chest as she leaned against him. “I want to make a toast to you,” he said as they broke apart, her eyes fluttering open. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow, you are the most important thing, the most important person in my life. You make me happier than I’ve ever been and I would be lost without you. I love you so much, Jemma.”

Setting her butterbeer down on the desk, she hugged him tightly, pressing her face against his neck. “I love you too. More than you can imagine.” She kissed him so hard it nearly took his breath away and he had to use one hand to keep his balance on the desk. He ran the fingers of his other hand through her hair, feeling the gooseflesh rise on the back of her neck as he licked at the inside of her mouth. She tasted sweet like butterbeer.

Jemma pressed kisses up his cheek, across his forehead, and down the other as he panted. “A toast to us?” she suggested as she picked up her drink again, taking a sip.

Tucking her against his side, he said, “I’m up for that.”

Tapping her bottle against his, she thought for a minute and said, “To five years of friendship and many more years of being together.”

He rested his head on top of hers, feeling her breathe in sync with him. “To spending time with the person who is absolutely right for you in every way.”

She smiled against his chest. “To never again having doubts about how much we care about each other.”

Fitz leaned down to kiss Jemma, staring into her brown eyes for a long time. “Cheers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, and bookmarked this story! It was my first large work for the fandom and I was blown away by everyone's kindness. I appreciate any time anyone spent enjoying and acknowledging it. Thank you again!
> 
> I do plan on writing more in this universe and some of that more should be coming fairly soon.


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